Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Murray Hogg
Candidate
I certify that the substance of this dissertation of 44592 words has not previously been
submitted for any degree and is not currently being submitted for any other degree. I also
certify that any assistance received in conducting the research embodied in the dissertation,
and all sources used, have been acknowledged in the text or notes.
Supervisor
I consider that this dissertation is in a form suitable for examination and conforms to the
ii
Abstract
The Gospel of John is studied in order to determine its major epistemological themes. An
examination of relevant themes in contemporary epistemology suggests this account is at least
initially plausible.
The Introduction provides a brief historical background to the study, emphasising two
important developments in recent epistemology: the demise of epistemological
foundationalism and the resurgence of socially mediated forms of knowledge. These, along
with a number of other considerations basic to the thesis, are discussed.
In part one the Johannine account of the knowledge of God is explored. Several
characters of Johns Gospel are considered: the religious leaders, Nicodemus, the Woman of
Samaria, Nathanael, and the Twelve. Consideration is given to the pneumatology of the
Gospel. Three epistemological themes are found to be of especial importance: the notion of
epistemic virtue, the role of testimony in forming Christian belief, and the action of the Holy
Spirit as epistemic agent.
In part two an exploration is made of relevant themes in contemporary epistemology with
the aim of determining whether the account of knowledge uncovered in part one is at least
initially plausible. This is prefaced by a few remarks on the relation between the Johannine
concept of belief and that put forward in contemporary epistemology. It is found that the
treatment of epistemic virtue and testimony in the literature is such to suggest that the
Johannine account has at least initial plausibility with respects to these two themes.
Greater consideration is given to the action of the Holy Spirit as epistemic agent due to
the more problematic nature of such an idea. The discussion occurs in two main stages. First,
contemporary analytic epistemology is considered to demonstrate that in failing to recognise
an ontological realm of spirit, epistemology cannot account for the idea of the Holy Spirit
as epistemic agent. The primary issue is thus seen as ontological. The second stage of the
discussion examines the work of several significant 20th century thinkers to demonstrate that
there are at least initially plausible responses to such difficulties.
The thesis concludes that the account of the knowledge of God in Johns Gospel is at
least initially plausible when considered against relevant themes in contemporary
epistemology.
iii
Dedication
For my parents
iv
Acknowledgements
They say it takes a village to raise a child. I have discovered something similar is true of
I owe inestimable gratitude to my supervisor, Rev. Dr. Colin Kruse. In earlier days he
was my lecturer in Johns Gospel at the Bible College of Victoria (BCV), now the Melbourne
School of Theology (MST). The wisdom, learning, and Christian character which he
demonstrated in that capacity was instrumental in my choice of subject for this thesis. His
subsequent advice and support serve only to deepen my admiration and appreciation.
The Very Rev. Dr. Shane Mackinlay of Catholic Theological College, East Melbourne
offered sage advice on the philosophical aspects of this project. His emphasis upon the need
for conceptual clarity has greatly helped me to understand the difference between defining
and defending a thesis, and merely having a few related ideas. Nobody reading the final result
The administrative staff of MST have always been amongst the friendliest and most
helpful of people. Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Pugh, Dean of the Nash Institute for Advanced Studies in
Theology and Culture, has offered countless snippets of helpful advice, theological and
otherwise. Ms. Kathryn Simon, the administrator at the Nash Institute, is the salt of the earth
who has saved me from more administrative difficulties (usually of my own making) than any
v
person has a right to expect. That she has done so with a smile on her face says it all. Ms.
Kathy Caddy, the MST librarian, has not only been a delight in her capacity as librarian, but
her great enthusiasm for the current project has been an inspiration.
with the project with endless good grace. More importantly, their willingness to have me as
their part-time pastor has relieved me of all those pressures that so often weigh upon the
genuinely indebted.
Throughout the course of the project there have been a litany of people who have
affirmed the value of this piece of research. Some have been quite eminent, others less so, and
I cannot possibly name them all. To even try would be to commit the sin of omission. The
shifting membership of the Nash Institute Post-Graduate seminars does, however, deserve
special mention. As for the others, I must content myself with acknowledging that much in the
thesis was hammered out in a myriad of engagements. Those who have, at any time, done me
the kindness of listening whilst I have held forth on the contents of this thesis, you have my
Murray Hogg
July 2011
vi
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Introduction............................................................................................................................1
a. Protestant Theology From the Reformation to the Present............................................2
b. The Response in This Thesis.........................................................................................6
i. Epistemological Assumptions....................................................................................6
ii. Some Guiding Principles..........................................................................................8
iii. Narrative Strategy and Christological Claim...........................................................9
c. The Thesis in Outline...................................................................................................10
d. Some Further Remarks................................................................................................11
i. On Limitations in the Thesis....................................................................................11
ii. On Recent Literature...............................................................................................12
Part One
The Knowledge of God in Johns Gospel............................................................................14
Chapter 2
The Religious Leaders..........................................................................................................15
a. The Prologue as Epistemic Framework.......................................................................16
b. The Identity of Jesus Opponents ................................................................................16
c. Jesus in Confrontation with the Religious Leaders......................................................18
d. Signs and Faith in Johns Gospel.................................................................................22
e. The Nature of the Religious Leaders Unbelief...........................................................23
f. The Ethical Aspect of Unbelief....................................................................................27
g. Summary......................................................................................................................29
Chapter 3
Nicodemus............................................................................................................................31
a. Nicodemus in History and Tradition............................................................................32
b. Nicodemus in Engagement with Jesus (John 3:1-21)..................................................33
c. The Inappropriate Responses of Jesus and Johannine Discontinuities....................34
d. Summary......................................................................................................................36
vii
Chapter 4
The Woman of Samaria........................................................................................................38
a. The Unfavourable Situation of the Woman of Samaria...............................................39
b. Spiritual Nature of the Womans Problem...................................................................40
c. Relationship as the Ground of Faith............................................................................40
d. Willingness to Reconsider Religious Certainties.........................................................43
i. I perceive you are a prophet.................................................................................43
ii. An Authoritative Pronouncement...........................................................................45
iii. Taheb: Messianic expectations in Samaritan Tradition.........................................47
iv. The Woman of Samaria and Her Social Context(s)...............................................50
e. Summary......................................................................................................................52
Chapter 5
Nathanael..............................................................................................................................54
a. The Basis of Nathanaels Confession..........................................................................55
b. Nathanaels Understanding of Jesus as the Christ, the King of Israel.....................58
c. Faith and Unbelief in Johns Gospel............................................................................60
d. Summary......................................................................................................................64
Chapter 6
The Twelve...........................................................................................................................66
a. The Calling of the Twelve (John 1:35-2:12)................................................................66
b. Personal Relationship, Trust, and the Call to Follow Jesus.........................................68
c. Titles ascribed to Jesus at the Outset of the Gospel.....................................................69
d. The Failure to Comprehend.........................................................................................71
i. Significant Omissions in the Feeding of the Multitude...........................................71
ii. Uncertainty At the Final Supper.............................................................................72
e. Summary......................................................................................................................74
Chapter 7
The Holy Spirit/Paraclete.....................................................................................................75
a. The Paraclete Sayings of the Farewell Discourse........................................................76
i. John 14:15-17..........................................................................................................76
ii. John 14:26...............................................................................................................77
iii. John 15:26..............................................................................................................78
iv. John 16:7-11...........................................................................................................78
v. John 16:12-15..........................................................................................................79
vi. Conclusion.............................................................................................................80
b. The Holy Spirit in Johns Gospel.................................................................................81
c. The Implied Epistemology of Johns Gospel...............................................................83
d. The Epistemic Implications of Johannine Dualism.....................................................88
e. Summary......................................................................................................................91
viii
Chapter 8
A Summary of Johannine Epistemology..............................................................................92
a. Epistemic Virtue...........................................................................................................92
b. The Role of Testimony in Forming Christian Belief...................................................93
c. The Holy Spirit as Epistemic Agent.............................................................................93
d. Epistemological Holism..............................................................................................95
e. Summary......................................................................................................................95
Part Two
Ontology and the Sources of Knowledge in Epistemology.................................................96
Chapter 9
Relevant Themes in Contemporary Epistemology...............................................................97
a. Belief, Knowledge and Faith.......................................................................................97
b. Testimony...................................................................................................................100
c. Virtue Epistemology..................................................................................................104
Chapter 10
Ontology and its Relation to Epistemology.......................................................................107
a. The Sources of Knowledge in Contemporary Analytic Epistemology......................107
i. Implications for a Christian Knowledge of God....................................................108
Perception, Reason, and Introspection.................................................................108
Memory and Testimony........................................................................................112
b. Ontology and Epistemology......................................................................................113
i. Ontology Determines Epistemology: A Critique and a Response.........................115
ii. Transcendental Justification of Ontological Categories.......................................116
c. Summary....................................................................................................................118
Chapter 11
The Knowledge of God in 20th Century Theology............................................................119
a. William James (1842-1910).......................................................................................119
b. Rudolf Otto (1869-1937)...........................................................................................123
c. John Baillie (1886-1960)...........................................................................................126
d. William P. Alston (1921-2009)..................................................................................129
e. Alvin Plantinga (1932-present)..................................................................................132
f. Summary....................................................................................................................136
Chapter 12
Conclusion..........................................................................................................................139
Bibliography.......................................................................................................................145
ix
Chapter 1
Introduction
The task is this: How can theology make the primacy of God and his revelation in Jesus
Christ intelligible, and validate its truth claim, in an age when all talk about God is reduced
to subjectivity, as may be seen from the social history of the time and the modern fate of the
proofs of God and philosophical theology?1
How indeed? If we begin with the primacy of God and his revelation we are at risk of falling
through appeal to some universal [i.e. non-Christian] epistemic principle we are at risk of
betraying the very faith we seek to defend. 2 If we choose some principle for no other reason
than that it is agreeable to Christian faith, we are at risk of subjectivity. The need is for an
epistemic principle consistent with Christian faith, yet which is in no way open to a charge of
subjectivity.3
This thesis seeks to respond to this need through an examination of the account of the
1
Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991), 128.
2
A problem famously expressed by Tertullian: What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? (De
praescriptione hereticorum VII). For a contemporary restatement of the problem in general terms see the
introduction and chapter one of Jurgen Moltmann, The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation
and Criticism of Christian Theology (London: SCM Press, 2001). Or, with specific reference to
epistemology, see Paul J. Griffiths, How Epistemology Matters to Theology, Journal of Religion 79, no. 1
(1999): 1-18.
3
Here I follow Pannenbergs use of the word subjectivity to refer to an arbitrary choice of epistemic
principle(s). There is, as readers of Kierkegaard would be well aware, another usage of the term in relation to
the need for personal response to the claims of Christ. I touch upon such issues later in the thesis (chapter 9,
section a).
1
contemporary epistemology which have relevance to this account. The idea here is that Johns
Gospel can provide us with an authentically Christian perspective on how we might come to
the knowledge of God, whilst an examination of contemporary epistemology will shed light
upon the philosophical plausibility of this account. This, in turn, will clarify the process of
knowing involved in Christian faith and assist us in responding to the problem Pannenberg
identifies above.
be particularly significant: the notion of epistemic virtue, the role of testimony in forming
Christian belief, and the action of the Holy Spirit as epistemic agent. As spirit is not a
recognised ontological category in Western thought, the idea of a spiritual epistemic agent is
given more consideration than either virtue epistemology or testimony. Yet I offer no
comprehensive treatment of any of these themes. The issues involved are significant and my
goal here is a modest one: to identify such epistemological themes as merit further
consideration beyond this thesis. This points to the fact that I regard this thesis as only part of
a larger inquiry into the question of the Christian knowledge of God. The scope of that
inquiry, and the place of this thesis within it, can be best expressed through a brief overview
The issues which set the context for the present thesis are a consequence of the development
of Protestant thought over some 500 years. It is not here necessary to narrate that history in
detail as treatments in the literature are common. Even the various epistemic issues have been
well documented elsewhere.5 So I will here simply draw attention to the points of particular
4
Where I make reference to the Gospel it is the canonical Gospel of John which is in mind. Other written
Gospels, canonical or otherwise, are referenced by their full title. The term Gospel is not used in reference
to the message of the early Christian movement (cf. Rom. 1:1), the term kerygma being adopted instead.
5
Alister E. McGrath, Historical Theology: An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought (Oxford:
Blackwell Publishers, 1998), 214-341.
2
relevance.
thought.6 This has great relevance for Christian theology within which authority has always
played an important role. This was especially true in the pre-Modern era but things began to
change in the 16th century when the Reformers asserted the authority of Scripture over that of
the Church.7 The flight from authority had begun, and it was not long until the authority of
supplanted by reason and sense experience (empiricism) as the most highly regarded sources
of knowledge. These, however, did not account for all that people wished to say about
knowledge and an ever increasing appeal was made to personal experience. The common
thread here was the elevation of the individual to a position of prominence. In opposition to
deference to authorities, emphasis was increasingly laid upon the autonomous individual
knower.
The trend toward autonomous thought had its influence upon Protestant Christian
theology which found neither rationalism nor empiricism to be particularly helpful bases for
theological reflection. Thus, attention turned to religious experience, and this would become a
central consideration in the two major Protestant approaches of the modern period, Liberalism
and Evangelicalism. Liberalism found its genesis in the work of Friedrich Schleiermacher
(1768-1834) who was seeking a way to make Christian faith relevant to its cultured
Christian faith. Thus arose the two major streams of modern Protestant thought, both firmly
6
Jeffrey Stout, The Flight from Authority: Religion, Morality, and the Quest for Autonomy, Revisions: A Series
of Books on Ethics (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981).
7
Mark A. Noll, Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI:
Baker Books, 2000), 155-56.
8
McGrath, Historical Theology, 221-22.
3
grounded in religious experience, but differing in the credibility they assigned to traditional
The mid to late 20th century saw the rise of Post-Modernism, the key feature of which
the ultimate assertion of the Modernist ideal of personal autonomy, leading Oden to suggest
involves rejection of the Modernist meta-narrative, particularly its idealisation of reason and
a dislocating human condition [which] tends to throw people out of world-views they have
traditionally held [and] tends to view human experience as incoherent, lacking absolutes in
the area of truth and meaning.11
Such trends have their impact on Christian thought and Christian authors have spoken of the
crisis of revealed truth12 and the fragmentation of intellectual discourse13 which affects
secular and Christian thought at all levels.14 What is arising is a renewed awareness of the
epistemology.16
The demise of Modernism could hardly fail to impact upon those forms of Christian faith
9
Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. Geoff Bennington and
Brian Massumi, Theory and History of Literature v. 10 (Manchester, Eng.: Manchester Univ. Press, 1986),
xxiv.
10
Thomas C. Oden, The Death of Modernity and Postmodern Evangelical Spirituality, in The Challenge of
Postmodernism: An Evangelical Engagement, ed. David S. Dockery (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1997), 26.
11
David S. Dockery, Introduction: The Challenge of Postmodernism, in The Challenge of Postmodernism:
An Evangelical Engagement, ed. David S. Dockery (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1997), 14.
12
Ronald H. Nash, Word of God and the Mind of Man: The Crisis of Revealed Truth in Contemporary
Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1982).
13
Alister E. McGrath, A Scientific Theology: Volume 1, Nature (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2001), 26-34.
14
Other than those specifically referenced here, there are many other book length treatments of this theme.
Others consulted include: Donald A. Carson, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church:
Understanding a Movement and Its Implications (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005); Stanley J. Grenz,
Primer on Postmodernism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996); Stanley J. Grenz, Renewing the Center:
Evangelical Theology in a Post-Theological Era (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000).
15
Epistemological foundationalism involves a foundation of indubitable beliefs lending justification to other
beliefs which lie above them in the structure of knowledge. This justification cannot flow down the
structure. Epistemological holism thinks in terms of a web of beliefs which lend each other mutual
justification. In holism there are no foundational beliefs.
16
Nancey C. Murphy, Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning, Cornell Studies in the Philosophy of
Religion (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), 201ff.
4
which arose under its influence. Liberal theology had attempted to translate Christian faith
into the language of reigning philosophical paradigms. But this had the undesirable effect of
allowing alien epistemologies hegemony over theological formulation.17 This alone was bad
enough, but with the advent of post-modernism and the rejection of meta-narrative,
Liberal theology would fracture into multiple approaches depending upon ones philosophical
commitments: Liberation Theology (in engagement with Marxism), Feminist Theology, Eco-
Theology, Gay Theology, and so on. A most important analysis of this state of affairs is given
by Lindbeck.18 He suggests that the translations of liberal theology have become more
strained, complex, and obscure as society moves away from it religious roots, leading to an
theology, but his alternate proposal has not won wide acceptance and it is questionable
The other form of Modern Protestant expression, Evangelicalism, has its own problems.
It has so strongly relied upon an infallible Bible as the foundation upon which one may build
a superstructure of impeachable dogmatic claims that it can scarcely come to terms with
recent moves away from epistemological foundationalism. The Evangelical tradition has seen
17
Griffiths, How Epistemology Matters.
18
George A Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age, (Philadelphia, PA:
Westminster Press, 1984).
19
Ibid., 129. Cf. Moltmann:
Under the pressure to give a public demonstration of the relevance of theology to the problems of
society and of individuals in it, and to manifest in a new form its relationship to a changed world, a
long series of theological structures of great integrity were created. All of them provided Christian
theology with the characteristics of a relationship to the surrounding world which was to make it
relevant. There was existentialist theology, hermeneutic, ontological, cultural, social, indigenous,
religious and political theology, and also the theology of secularization, of revolution, of liberation,
etc. Because the relevance of Christian theology had become uncertain, there was and is an attempt
to supply Christian theology with new categories of fundamental theology in the spirit and the
circumstances of the present day. It is clear that theology can no longer find a permanent basis in
the general thinking, feeling and action of contemporary society. The reason for this lies less in
theology than in the fact that in a pluralist society, what concerns everyone absolutely, and what
society must absolutely desire, is more difficult to identify than in earlier and more homogeneous
societies. (Moltmann, Crucified God, 4)
20
A helpful critical overview of Lindbecks Nature of Doctrine is given in Alister E. McGrath, A Scientific
Theology: Volume 2, Reality (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2002), 39-54.
5
a flurry of works dealing with the challenges of post-modernism, with the nature and role of
Scripture being a particularly prevalent theme.21 I personally find revealing the fact that
although Evangelicals often cite the dangers of relativism as a reason for eschewing post-
themselves. Clearly, even a high view of Scripture does not guarantee unity of theological
formulation. This, in and of itself, suggests that Biblical foundationalism does not provide the
certain basis for theological reflection that many Evangelicals seek. Yet it hardly seems
correct to suggest that Scripture should play other than a central role in Christian theology.
theological task such that the the centrality of Scripture can be affirmed without adopting a
foundationalist epistemology.
Protestant theology thus finds itself at an interesting historical juncture. Its traditional
approaches, relying on Modernist assumptions, are clearly not adequate for current
challenges. In this thesis I seek to outline an epistemology which addresses these challenges
i. Epistemological Assumptions
desirable, to argue ones case from a foundation of (supposedly) certain propositions. Thus,
21
A representative sample of such works includes John D. Caputo, What Would Jesus Deconstruct? The Good
News of Postmodernity For the Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007); David S. Dockery, ed.,
Challenge of Postmodernism: An Evangelical Engagement (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1997); Stanley J.
Grenz, Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context, ed. John R. Franke
(Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001); Douglas R. Groothuis, Truth Decay: Defending Christianity
Against the Challenges of Postmodernism (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000); Thomas C. Oden,
After ModernityWhat?: Agenda for Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992); Thomas C. Oden, The
Rebirth of Orthodoxy: Signs of New Life in Christianity (San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003);
Leonard I. Sweet, Brian D. McLaren, and Jerry Haselmayer, A Is for Abductive: The Language of the
Emerging Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003); Robert E. Webber, Ancient-Future Faith:
Rethinking Evangelicalism for a Postmodern World, Ancient-Future Faith Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Books, 1999). Of these, Stanley J. Grenz deserves honourable mention. He had been a prolific and insightful
commentator on post-modern thought prior to his untimely death.
6
although this is primarily a thesis in Biblical Studies, it does not follow that I regard
One primary concern of the thesis is to address the problem of the knowledge of spiritual
realities. In short, the problem is this: Christian scripture and Christian theology affirm that a
knowledge of God becomes possible through the work of the Holy Spirit. Yet contemporary
epistemology does not acknowledge an ontological category of spirit. Following the maxim
allow us to affirm knowledge of any spiritual person or object. We must conclude that either
The thesis sets out to show that the best resolution of this problem is to make some
scriptural/theological claims are regarded as foundational, but because (1) there are good
reasonable, than to deny the scriptural or theological affirmations regarding the action of the
This approach demonstrates epistemological holism in action, for it regards our various
their own way, and asks: what is the least severe tweak required to bring them into coherent
22
My approach here is very much informed by Tillichs notion of faith as an act of the total personality. Here
the idea is that faith is not a function of one element of the human psyche, but involves all the aspects of the
person. See Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith (New York: Perennial, 2001), 4-5.
7
relationship? An approach informed by epistemological foundationalism would ask instead
which of these should be given precedence and modify or reject any other claim which stands
Scripture it is unavoidable.
extraordinarily rich and considerably more robust than Modernist theology often
4. To give more adequate regard to pneumatology. This subject was sadly neglected
during the Modernist period27 despite Christian tradition regarding the Holy Spirit as
the special agent of revelation by which God in Christ is made known.28 Basil of
Caesarea had offered what I regard as the classical formulation: the way of the
23
See particularly J. Todd Billings, The Word of God for the People of God: An Entryway to the Theological
Interpretation of Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010) and Kevin J. Vanhoozer, First Theology:
God, Scripture and Hermeneutics (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002).
24
The most scathing denunciation of theologically motivated biblical studies from an informed perspective of
which I am aware is to be found in Hector Avalos, The End of Biblical Studies (Amherst, NY: Prometheus
Books, 2007). The dangers Avalos warns of are very real, but in my view he overstates the problem. One
should not, in any case, overlook the fact that Avalos has his own agenda, conditioned by his own point-of-
view.
25
See the discussion above and, particularly, the cited article by Griffiths, How Epistemology Matters.
26
Extended treatments of the theme can be found in Mark W. Elliott, Postmodernism and Theology, in
Getting Your Bearings: Engaging with Contemporary Theologians, ed. Philip Duce and Daniel Strange
(Leicester, Eng.: Apollos, 2003), 215-87; Brian D. McLaren, Generous Orthodoxy: Why I Am a Missional,
Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative,
Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-yet-
Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished Christian (El Cajon, CA: Emergent YS, 2004); Oden, After Modernity.
27
Sinclair B. Ferguson, The Holy Spirit, Contours of Christian Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity
Press, 1996), 11-14; Daniel L. Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian
Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991), 166-68.
28
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics. Volume I, Part 1: The Doctrine of the Word of God, trans. G.T. Thomson
(Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1936), 513-15.
8
knowledge of God lies from One Spirit through the One Son to the One Father. 29 In
that spirit, any epistemology which seeks to be regarded as consistent with Christian
5. Whilst researching the Woman of Samaria (Chapter 4) great benefit was obtained from
approach to the Biblical text throughout the thesis. Two considerations in particular
were significant: that there is (contrary Elisabeth Cady Stanton) no such thing as
absences as well as presences in history. 32 It struck me that these have implications for
principle(s). This may risk a nave historicising of the text, but equally we should
could hardly serve to misrepresent it given that it is presented in precisely such terms.
And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written
in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
God, and that believing you may have life in His name. (Jn. 20:30-31)
I make frequent reference to this statement in the thesis and have adopted the following terms
for convenience.
Narrative Strategy: refers to the means the Gospel deploys to bring the reader to believe
29
De Spiritu Sancto 18.47. For a further discussion see p.83 in this thesis.
30
Natalie K. Watson, Feminist Theology, Guides to Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003).
31
Ibid., 9.
32
Ibid., 5.
33
Here emphasis is often laid upon a (purported) Samaritan mission by the early church. See Raymond Edward
Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 34-40.
34
Hence I treat Woman of Samaria as a proper noun.
9
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, viz: the use of a narrative which recounts a select
Christological Claim: is the affirmation Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
The thesis is comprised of two major sections; (1) an exegetical treatment of Johns Gospel;
and (2) a discussion of relevant epistemological themes with particular reference to the
Johns Gospel was selected for three reasons: as a canonical Gospel it can without
major theme; and it contains significant material on pneumatology, particularly the role of the
Holy Spirit as epistemic agent. It therefore has a significant contribution to make to the
The Gospel features extensive discourse material as well as several cameos in which
individuals interact with Jesus. These latter are a significant aspect of the narrative strategy 35
and the thesis makes them its primary focus. The discourse material is introduced where
appropriate. Particular consideration is given to the the Gospels references to the Holy
thematic summary (Chapter 8) helps to bring out the thematic unity of the Gospel in a most
helpful manner and greatly simplifies the task of comparing the scriptural/theological material
The second part of the thesis involves: (1) An overview of significant epistemological
themes relevant to Johns Gospel; (2) An overview of the relationship between ontology and
35
R. Alan Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress
Press, 1983), 145.
10
credibility.
Note that in part two I am seeking merely to identify relevant philosophical themes, not
to defend or critique them. I avoid any radical or innovative claims in favour of citing the
published work of recognised scholars in epistemology and philosophy of religion. Thus, the
treatment is largely unoriginal except, perhaps, in the way it brings together various strands in
recent philosophy. This is, I think, sufficient for my overall purposes: to demonstrate that
Johannine epistemology is not glaringly implausible, and to clarify matters for further
consideration.
Finally, the scriptural and philosophical considerations are brought together in the
conclusion.
I am aware of a number of limitations in the thesis. Although these do not, I think, impact the
modest goal I have set myself, it will still be helpful to acknowledge such additions as might
1. A more detailed account of the history of ideas thus clarifying the intellectual context
3. An engagement with the writings of the Church Fathers, with Basil of Caesareas De
5. A greater engagement with the theological literature on pneumatology and its relation
to Christian knowledge.
11
epistemology. The works of John Calvin, Nancey Murphy, Wolfhart Pannenberg, and
Due to the dearth of relevant literature the thesis contains no literature review. Indeed, the
void in the literature was a primary motive for the thesis topic from the outset. The one
substantial treatment of the theme is found in Bennema who notes just this problem. 36
Bennema provides a brief bibliography37 mentioning that the works therein are limited in
Johannine studies of the early to mid-20th century. This change came about due to a remark by
a distinguished Jewish scholar, Israel Abrahams: to us Jews the Fourth Gospel is the most
Jewish of the four.38 Prior to this the Gospel was regarded as late, Hellenistic in thought, and
Gnostic influence in particular, a focus which remains evident at least as late as Bultmann, 39
but more recent works have seen serious reappraisal of this outlook.
The Gnostic influence thesis is, in any case, problematic on other grounds. There is a
well-known chronological difficulty, with Gnostic sources generally post-dating the rise of
Christianity so making Gnostic borrowing of Christian ideas more likely than vice versa. 40
Furthermore, significant gains in our knowledge of first-century thought, the discovery of the
Nag Hammadi library (c. 1945) in particular, has led scholars to question whether Gnosticism
36
Cornelis Bennema, Christ, the Spirit and the Knowledge of God: A Study in Johannine Epistemology, in
The Bible and Epistemology: Biblical Soundings on the Knowledge of God, ed. Mary Healy and Robin Parry
(Milton Keynes, Eng.: Paternoster, 2007), 107-33.
37
Ibid., 107n1.
38
Stephen Neill and N.T. Wright, The Interpretation of the New Testament, 1861-1986, 2nd ed. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1988), 338.
39
See particularly the treatment of Johns Gospel in Rudolf Karl Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament,
trans. Kendrick Grobel, vol. 2, 2 vols. (London: SCM Press, 1965).
40
Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, vol. 1, 2 vols. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003), 164.
12
can even be identified, much less defined, as a coherent religious movement in its own right. 41
The implications for attempts to draw upon Gnosticism to explain Johannine thought should
be evident.
provided the thesis and antithesis which resolved in an early Catholic synthesis. This entire
schema has fallen into disfavour and need no longer inform ones approach to Johns Gospel.
It is, in any case, interesting to note that the very idea of a conflict between Pauline and
Petrine Christianity arose amongst Protestant and Roman Catholic scholars for whom appeal
to Paul or Peter respectively was a fundamental part of their polemical arsenal. It seems to me
that Johannine studies have been influenced for the worse by the projection onto early
These considerations explain why I have chosen to by-pass much of the literature prior to
Bultmann and return ad fontes, as it were, in order to inquire what one of the earliest Christian
documents, the Gospel of John, has to say regarding the knowledge of God. It is to that
41
See particularly Karen L. King, What Is Gnosticism? (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press, 2003).
13
Part One
Often ones grasp of a subject can be greatly furthered by inquiring after counter-instances,
and our study of the knowledge of God in Johns Gospel will begin in precisely this way. We
will look first at a prominent group of religious leaders who stand in opposition to Jesus and
ask what lessons we can draw from their lack of belief. There is, as we shall see, much to
learn here, and from an epistemological perspective it is fortunate that the Gospel recounts
their opposition to Jesus in some detail. Doubtlessly, they consider their opposition justified,
but the Gospel declares Jesus to be the Christ and their opposition must therefore be regarded
as misplaced. It becomes even more problematic given they are chief amongst his own
(1:11) who do not receive him. The religious leaders initially seem open and inquisitive, yet
their attitudes gradually harden until they decide that Jesus is too great a threat to our place
and nation (11:48). Ultimately, this is seen as a fulfilment of the prophetic word by the
prophet Isaiah (12:37-41). It is not for lack of evidence that they reject Jesus. Rather their
trenchant opposition is portrayed as arising out of some very deep-seated character flaws
which blind them to their own short-comings. Character, it turns out, is a very important
epistemological consideration.
15
a. The Prologue as Epistemic Framework
The Gospel prologue (1:1-18) provides an epistemic framework for understanding the person
of Jesus Christ and provides the backdrop by which the various Johannine characters, the
The prologue informs us that the created order is structured along coherent, rational lines,
thanks to the Logos who has been with God from the beginning, assisting in the creative
task and providing life and light to all humanity (1:1-5, 9). This apparently promising
Johannine double entendre has it, the darkness has never been able to to
comprehend (as per NIV, NASB, etc.) or suppress (as per NLT, ESV, etc.)the light. Yet even
so, the darkness persists such that the Light was not recognised by those he created (10) and
Against this backdrop the Jews play a particularly significant part. The Prologue
progressively narrows the circle of divine disclosurefrom all things (3), to all
people (4), to the recipients of the Mosaic law (17). They, of all people, ought to recognise
the Incarnate Logos (14) yet despite their advantageous religious position, they fail to do so.
The Gospel actually regards them as not Jewish enough for if, like Nathanael, they had been
Israelites lacking in guile (47) then they too would have recognised and confessed Jesus as
Thus, the prologue sets the scene for Jesus confrontation with the Jews, sounding the
ominous note: he came to his own, but his own did not receive him (11).
By using the term the Jews the Gospel risks portraying ethnicity as the decisive factor in
deciding opposition to Jesus. This is entirely the wrong conclusion to draw 42 as the major
42
On the dangers of drawing anti-Semitic conclusions from Johns Gospel see Raymond Edward Brown,
Introduction to the Gospel of John, ed. Francis J. Moloney, The Anchor Bible reference library (New York:
Doubleday, 2003), 157-75. and Rightly Explaining the Word of Truth: Guidelines for Christian Clergy and
16
issues concern not ethnicity but religious status. Yet even this requires careful treatment, for
whilst the Gospels references to the Jews are broadly inclusive, 43 the Judaism to which the
Gospel refers is that of first-century Judea and Galilee, centred upon the Jerusalem temple and
the Pharisaic interpretation of Torah. There is no mention of strands of Judaism which stood
in tension with these, neither the Sadducees (cf. Acts 23:6) or Herodians of the Synoptics, nor
that the Gospel includes the story of the Woman of Samaria (4:1-42) given opposition to the
Jerusalem temple and the Jewish understanding of Torah were distinctive Samaritan
characteristics.44
The Gospel does not, in any case, critique only Judaism. It has Jesus critiquing Samaritan
religious practice whilst on the way to affirming that God is Spirit, and those who worship
Him must worship in spirit and truth (4:19-24). This has clear implications for any form of
worship, not just that practised at Jerusalem or Mt. Gerizim (the site of the Samaritan temple),
and any exegetical tradition, not just that of the Pharisees or Samaritans. The Gospels critique
thus centres upon questions of religious authority and tradition rather than ethnicity. Such
I infer from this that in any historical or cultural context Jesus would challenge those in
positions of authority and, potentially, draw their hostile reaction. We may find analogous
instances in the Roman Catholic response to Luther and, in turn, Luthers response to the
Anabaptists. Such responses can be for entirely good reasons and, indeed, they are inevitably
portrayed in just that light. Yet as the prologue of the Gospel tells us from the outset that Jesus
is the Incarnate Logos, there can be, from the Gospels perspective, no suggestion of good
Teachers in their use of the New Testament with reference to the New Testaments presentation of Jews and
Judaism (The Council of Christians and Jews (Victoria) Inc., NDA), http://www.ccjaustralia.org/en/?
item=209.
43
Brown, Introduction, 164-66.
44
See the discussion of Samaritan religion in chapter 4.
45
Cf. Francis J. Moloney, The Gospel of John, ed. Daniel J. Harrington, Sacra Pagina Series 4 (Collegeville,
MN: Liturgical Press, 1998), 11.
17
reasons for disbelief. The Jews of Johns Gospel should therefore be seen as somewhat of
religious orthodoxy of a sort which has no necessary connection with Jewishness. So despite
Browns objection (above), I will replace the Gospels references to the Jews with reference
Yet even this may paint with too broad a brush. No group of persons is ever monolithic
and the Gospel itself allows that some of the Jews believed in Jesus (cf 12:42), and that
some, Nicodemus in particular,46 were clearly sympathetic to him. We must also remind
ourself when speaking of the Jews that not only every faithful follower of Jesus, but Jesus
Jesus confrontation with the religious leaders begins over issues of religious tradition and
authority but leads eventually to a critique of the religious leaders themselves. They, after all,
are entirely responsible for the form of religion which Jesus confronts as inadequate, and
Jesus will not allow them to evade that responsibility. This is quite consistent with the
Gospels emphasis upon the individual as the locus of religious reform, for it does not portray
transformation. The question is ultimately a matter of the individuals standing before God (a
spiritual matter) rather than a question of correct religious belief or practice. In respects of the
Jesus first interaction with the religious leaders comes at the cleansing of the temple
(2:13-25). Unlike the Synoptics, the Gospel locates this account at the beginning of Jesus
ministry (c.f. Mark 11:1519, 2733; Matthew 21:1217, 2327; and Luke 19:4548, 20:18)
and portrays a quite different response by the religious leaders. In the Synoptic accounts, the
relationship between Jesus and the religious leaders is already extraordinarily tense and the
46
See chapter 3, p.31ff.
18
cleansing of the temple serves to precipitate the final confrontation leading to Jesus arrest and
execution. In Johns Gospel, however, there is no history of ill-will and the religious leaders
response is considerably more reserved. Rather than hostility, there is only the night-time visit
from a curious Nicodemus (3:1ff.). It is Jesus breach of the Sabbath (5:1-16) that precipitates
hostility in Johns Gospel and the resurrection of Lazarus (11:1-53) which leads to decisive
action (53).
The religious leaders response to the cleansing of the temple is illuminating. Clearly of
the view that signs render legitimate the claims of the one who performs them, they request a
sign from Jesus (18). This is curious given that signs are cited as the reason many believed in
him (23) and constitute part of the rationale for Nicodemus visit (3:2). Clearly signs do not
necessarily lead to adequate faith and Jesus did not commit himself to them (2:24). Later,
during the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus will receive a similar request (6:30)this time
from a crowd who have proclaimed him the Prophet who is to come into the world
precisely because of his miracles (6:10-14). Despite seeing his signs people are evidently
unable to grasp the significance of Jesus actions. Consequently, they cannot grasp the
The issue of the significance of the foregoing point is helpfully illustrated by Bultmanns
Dass/Was distinction. Here the idea is that Johnin his Gospel presents only the fact
(das Dass) of the Revelation without describing its content (ihr Was) [thus] Jesus as the
Revealer of God reveals nothing but that he is the Revealer.47 Given the extensive discourse
material in the Gospel, it seems to me that Bultmanns Dass/Was distinction may go too far.
Yet it is certainly correct that the person of Jesus is central to the idea of revelation in the
Gospel and he himself displaces those institutions, Temple and Torah, which had hitherto been
regarded as central to Israels relationship with God.48 Thus Jesus refers to the temple of his
47
Bultmann, Theology, 2:66.
48
Andreas J. Kostenberger, A Theology of Johns Gospel and Letters (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009),
403-35.
19
body (2:21) and his priority over the written word (5:39-40). So, too, he takes to himself
titles laden with Christological significance such as the seven I am sayings (6:35,48; 8:12;
10:7,11,14; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1). His allusion to Jacobs Ladder (1:51 cf. Gen. 28:10-22)
announces that he is now the focal-point of divine disclosure. 49 This hardly exhausts the
Gospels treatment of this theme but it is enough to show that Jesus challenge to the religious
leaders lies in an attempt not to reform temple worship or the reading of Torah, but to supplant
them with his own person as the locus of divine revelation. Thus, Kruse;
As Jesus superseded Moses (1:17: the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came
through Jesus Christ) and the blessings of the kingdom supersede the ceremonial washings
of the old covenant (as exemplified in the miracle at Cana), so now the temple of Jerusalem
as the dwelling place of God is superseded by Christ himself. His body is the new temple,
the place where God was now making himself present. 50
It is thus ones relationship to Jesus, rather than to religious institutions, which is in the
Coming to terms with Jesus person is therefore the central challenge for the religious
leaders, and the Gospel tells the story of their failure to do so. Their difficulties start with a
healing on the Sabbath at the Pool of Bethesda (5:1-15). Jesus appeal to my Father (17)
seems decisive if we allow that such healing can only occur at divine behest (cf. Jesus further
remarks in 19-23), yet it serves merely to inflame matters. The religious leaders sought all
the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His
Father, making Himself equal with God (18). Jesus responds with a discourse defending his
Sonship (5:19-47), the last few lines being of primary interest here. Affirming that he has been
sent by the Father, Jesus declares that the religious leaders have failed properly to read the
evidence which bears witness to this fact. Most damning is their failure properly to apprehend
the witness of Scripture (29) as this implies that they do not believe the writings of
Moses (46-47). Later, Jesus questions their faithfulness to the Mosaic law (7:19), and, coming
49
See p.59.
50
Colin G. Kruse, The Gospel According to John: An Introduction and Commentary, The Tyndale New
Testament Commentaries 4 (Leicester, Eng.: Inter-Varsity Press, 2003), 102.
20
back to initial point of dispute, their understanding of Sabbath observance (7:22-23). Later we
find Jesus remarks have fallen on deaf ears when, responding to the healing of a man born
messianic statusthe religious leaders revile (9:28) the healed man: You are His disciple,
but we are Moses disciples. We know that God spoke to Moses; as for this fellow, we do not
Through this same section of the Gospel, Jesus questions another of the religious leaders
and have never been in bondage to anyone (8:33) Jesus declares that those who commit sin
are thereby its slaves (34), so denying their claim of Abrahamic sonship (35). Although
acknowledging their physical descent from Abraham (37), Jesus points out that their actions
belie the claim: If you were Abrahams children, you would do the works of Abraham. But
now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham
The issue of fatherhood is a sensitive one. The religious leaders attempt to defend their
Abrahamic ancestry by declaring that we were not born of fornication; we have one Father
God (41b) so making the very claim which, on Jesus lips, had been regarded by them as
grounds for condemnation (5:18). In the heat of the moment, they seek to end dispute by
appealing neither to Moses nor to Abraham, but to God himself. The religious leaders
response in 8:41b seems to demonstrate that they knew full well what Jesus was implying by
talk of a father besides Abraham in v.41a. But now Jesus makes it explicit when he says
you are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do (44). The
acrimony of the religious leaders becomes ever more apparent as they retort that Jesus is a
The religious leaders failure to believe renders them culpable given Jesus has, by his
21
signs and teaching, given them good reason to reconsider their position. Had they only
witnessed the signs they might be forgiven for not knowing what to make of them. Had they
only heard Jesus teaching they might be forgiven for dismissing it as mere trumpery. But they
know of both and are therefore culpable. This logic is articulated in Jesus appeal: If I do not
do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do, though you do not believe Me,
believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in
Him. (10:37-38). One might think such an appeal holds promise but the religious leaders
maintain their hostility: they sought again to seize Him, but He escaped out of their
hand (39). Finally comes the story of Lazarus (11:1-53) whose resurrection proves the
climax of Jesus public ministry in a quite counter-intuitive way. Rather than sweep aside all
doubt, and with it all resistance to Jesus messianic claims, it galvanises the opposition of the
religious leaders. From that day on, the Gospel tells us, they plotted to put him to
death (53).
We see, then, that the relationship between Jesus and the religious leaders is one which
deteriorates from initially curious to ultimately hostile in the extreme. The level of hostility
reflects the fact that Jesus own challenge is not merely conceptual. He does not come as a
reformer who seeks to purify accepted religious practices or institutions, but as one who seeks
to abolish them and replace them with himself. The rejection of Jesus is thus fundamentally
personal inasmuch as those to whom he came failed to recognise his true identity as the
Christ, the Son of God and then compounded this failure by putting him to death. In
Bultmannian terms, they rejected the revelation by rejecting the person of the revealer
himself.
It is worth digressing here to point out that Jesus signs in the Gospel have no obvious
relationship to faith. This is curious given the Gospels narrative strategy: one might think that
22
a document which narrates Jesus signs in order that the reader might believe (20:30-31)
might draw a definitive connection between signs and faith. Yet no such connection is
apparent. Bultmann discusses the matter and concludes that Gospel portrays both Jesus signs
and words as ambiguous and open to misunderstanding. 51 This is certainly true. The religious
leaders see Jesus signs and are thereby led to reject him. Nicodemus sees Jesus signs but
seems not to know what to make of them. The Woman of Samaria and Nathanael see no signs,
but believe in Jesus regardless. The crowd by the Sea of Galilee follow him because of his
signs (6:2), speculate that he is the prophet on that basis (14), yet continue to request signs
as a condition of belief (30) with many ultimately rejecting him (66). Throughout the thesis I
will have more to say on this curious relationship between signs and faithor perhaps we
might better say non-relationship. Clearly something more than a logically necessary
inference from signs is involved in a person coming to accept the Gospels Christological
claim.
The religious leaders failure to believe has two related aspects, cognitive and affective. 52 The
first is an inability to grasp, and the second an unwillingness to accept, the point of Jesus
words and deeds. These are not separate, but intimately related. The religious leaders cannot
see because they will not see and both aspects are drawn out in the Gospel.
While the religious leaders unwillingness to accept Jesus words and signs emerges only
gradually, their inability is introduced very early when their delegates approach John the
Baptist53 in order to ascertain his identity (1:19-28). Not only are they unable to identify the
Messiah who already stands in their midst (26), they are equally unable to recognise that the
Baptist is not the Messiah. They direct a litany of questions at the Baptist (19-21) and
determine that he is neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet, and this leaves them
51
Bultmann, Theology, 2:59-60.
52
For more on these terms, see the discussion on p.135.
53
Hereafter, simply the Baptist.
23
altogether confused as to the entire point of his baptising ministry (25). It is not clear,
however, that the religious leaders lack of discernment is a matter for criticism at this early
stage. Even the Baptist, despite being Jesus near kinsman, acknowledges that I did not know
him (1:31) and it required an act of divine revelation to disclose to him Jesus messianic
identity (32-33). Only later in the Gospel will the religious leaders lack of spiritual insight
Here it is important to note the enigmatic nature of the Gospels portrayal of the Baptist.
He rates highly enough for the religious leaders to inquire after his significance, but in the end
they do not find his testimony to Christ compelling (5:33-35). Yet even among his disciples,
some did not become followers of Jesus (3:22-25) despite his clear testimony (1:35-37; 3:27-
30). We can only wonder that some should regard the Baptist highly enough to be his
disciples, yet not follow Jesus in consequence of his testimony. In consequence, it seems
unwarranted to draw any strong conclusions from the religious leaders (non-)response to the
Baptists testimony.
As the Gospel narrative proceeds it becomes increasingly apparent that the religious
leaders suffer from a lack of spiritual insight. Theirs is that constitution of existence in which
it does not understand itself, is lost, does not know its way (12.35), is blind (Chap. 9) and
dead.54 This is most clearly shown, with no small irony, in the healing of the man born
blind (9:1-41), and the subsequent Good Shepherd discourse (10:1-21). In response to the
former the religious leaders raise obduracy to the level of an art-form. That they have no
intention of accepting the healed mans version of events is clear, but it is difficult to see what
they otherwise hope to achieve. There appears to be some conspiracy against Jesus at play and
their antagonism toward him is clearly stated: Jesus is not from God, because he does not
keep the Sabbath (16) and is regarded as a sinner (24). Should anybody confess him as the
54
Rudolf Karl Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, trans. George Raymond Beasley-Murray
(Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1971), 46-47.
24
Christ they would be put out of the synagogue (22)55 and this is the healed mans eventual
fate (34). In all of this the religious leaders act with a degree of wanton arrogance which is
well captured in their parting remark: You were completely born in sins, and are you
We find in 9:40-41 what amounts to commentary on this episode when Jesus is found in
were with him40). The Greek does not imply any kind of alliance 56 so we must not
regard them as torn between loyalty to their religious peers on the one hand, and Jesus on the
other. Rather, they are adherents, and so representatives, of that party which stands in
opposition to Jesus, entrenched in unbelief. The metaphor of blindness thus extends to all
Jesus opponents and we may therefore see such opposition as evidence of a spiritual
condition akin to physical blindness. Yet, in stark contrast to the physically blind man who is
aware of his infirmity and the fact that only God can cure him (30-32), Jesus opponents,
wilfully ignorant of their infirmity and full of baseless self-assurance, feel no need to seek
divine aid.
The good shepherd sayings which follow (10:1-18) change the imagery from seeing to
hearing. Just as the blind cannot see, so only the one who hears the voice of the shepherd
will come when the shepherd calls (10:4). The sheep know the shepherd and he knows his
sheep (14): a relational knowledge analogous to that between the Father and the Son (15).57
55
That the policy of expulsion did not arise until a later period can be acknowledged without rejecting the
fundamental point of the narrative: the man born blind is the innocent victim in an escalating conflict
between Jesus and the religious leaders, a conflict in which he is forced to declare sides. To express this in
terms expulsion from the Synagogue is anachronistic, but perhaps the best way of helping the initial readers
of the Gospel enter into the significance of the story.
56
C.K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek
Text (New York: Macmillan, 1955), 304.
57
See ibid., 312. Several popular translations render these verses along the same lines as the NIV; I am the
good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know mejust as the Father knows me and I know the
Fatherand I lay down my life for the sheep. Compare also the NLT, ESV, and NASB.
25
mysticism58 and although the Gospels relation to such thought is now less certain 59 the
observation about the mystical nature of the imagery remains relevant. As Kruse puts it;
When Jesus spoke about the Father knowing him, he did not mean that he knew about him,
or was acquainted with him, but that he enjoyed an intimate personal relationship. 60 Cyril of
When Jesus says, I know my own and my own know me, as the Father knows me and I
know the Father, it is equivalent to saying, I shall enter into a close relationship with my
sheep, and my sheep shall be brought into a close relationship with me, according to the
manner in which the Father is intimate with me, and again I also am intimate with the Father.
For God the Father knows his own Son and the fruit of his [i.e., the Fathers] substance
because he is truly his parent. And again, the Son knows the Father, beholding him as God in
truth, since he is begotten of him. In the same way, we also, being brought into a close
relationship with God the Father, are called his family and are spoken of as children,
according to what he himself said: Behold, I and the children whom God has given me.
Truly, we are called the family of the Son, and in fact we are part of his family. Through our
relationship to the Son, we are related to God the Father, because the Only Begotten, who is
God of God, was made man, and though separate from all sin, he assumed our human
nature.61
The religious leaders, then, do not merely lack an intellectual grasp of Jesus identity, they
suffer a deeper deficiency: an inability even to see or hear Jesus regardless of his signs or
teaching and so they refuse relationship with him. Countryman sums it up well:
The juxtaposition of metaphors in this speech [10:6-18] does not so much clarify as deepen
the imagery. Jesus is the gatethe only legitimate point of access; he is the good shepherd
the only true ruler; the sheep are really hishe is agent of creation; he and they know one
another as intimately as he and his father; the sheep will listen to no one elseThe language
is deliberately mysterious. There is no intention to clarify matters. Indeed, for the
enlightened, there is now no need. Jesus is, in the last analysis, all there is for human beings.
The believer relies on him for food and light and lifenot the cosmic daily emblems of
these things so much as the things themselves. The unenlightened, however, can make no
sense of it all. Jesus audience goes on fighting among themselves, and his opponents are still
trying to find some external mode of verification that will settle for them who he is. 62
There is, therefore, something more than metaphor in this talk of seeing and hearing. The
religious leaders were unable to assess Jesus messianic credentials, and their failure to
58
Eduard Norden, Agnostos Theos; Untersuchungen Zur Formengeschichte Religioser Rede (Leipzig: B.G.
Teubner, 1923), 287.
59
See p.12.
60
Kruse, John, 236.
61
Commentary on the Gospel of John 6.1, cited in Joel C. Elowsky, ed., John 1-10, Ancient Christian
Commentary on Scripture New Testament IVa (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 349.
62
Louis William Countryman, The Mystical Way in the Fourth Gospel: Crossing Over into God, Rev. (Valley
Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1994), 79.
26
recognise this inability, to appreciate that they suffered a spiritual blindness no less
debilitating than blindness of the physical sort, delivered them captive to its debilitating
epistemic effect.
Related to the the religious leaders inability to see (a cognitive incapacity) was an
unwillingness to believe (an affective incapacity), and this can be traced to their moral or
ethical condition:
Scott was here in the process of constructing a detailed account of the Johannine
experience.64 Like much from that period there are certain assumptions which we would no
longer accept and this renders Scotts overall project highly questionable. 65 He is surely
correct, however, to suggest that the Gospel draws a connection between belief and ethical
conditions and so to suggest that the chief hindrance to belief among the religious leaders
was ethical. This ethical aspect of belief is intimated at in the Prologue which speaks of the
world (9,10) and of darkness (5). The idea is not, as in radical Gnosticism, that the world is an
inherently evil place but, rather, that the world lies in the darkness of sin by virtue of
humanity making itself independent of God.66 The connection between unbelief and sin
27
It is not just that sinful behaviour is the consequence of unbeliefalthough the Gospel
certainly carries that message (5:24; 8:21-24; 11:25)it is that unbelief is entrenched by
ones attachment to sinful behaviour. Those who do not believe loved darkness rather than
light, because their deeds were evil (3:19). By avoiding the light they seek to suppress
exposure of their evil deeds (20). By contrast, those who do the truth display no such
reticence (21). If those who accept Jesus testimony have certified that God is true (3:33) then,
conversely, those who do not have called God a liar. These themes are woven throughout the
Gospel and are especially prominent in Jesus discussion with the religious leaders (chapters
5-8 and 12 in particular). Those who earnestly desire (Gk: ) to do Gods will can discern
the truth of Jesus teaching (7:17) while lack of such desire prevents people from coming to
him to obtain life (5:40). One is motivated either by love for God (and therefore receives the
one who comes in his name5:42-43; 8:42) or by self-interest (12:25). Those who lack love
for God will be lost (12:25). Even Moses, in whom the religious leaders trust, will accuse
them for their failure to love God and accept the one who comes in his name (5:42-45), not
least because this indicates a failure to believe the words either of Moses (5:46-47) or of
God (8:47). If one does not believe the words of God, then one is not of God (8:47). This does
not entail neutrality. Jesus charges the religious leaders that they are children of the devil
whose desire is to do their fathers will (8:44). He was a murderer from the beginning, and
does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him (44). It is because the religious
leaders are of the devil rather than God that they cannot discern in Jesus teaching the words
of God (8:47). When, following the resurrection of Lazarus, they decide to do away with
Jesus lest everyonebelieve in him, and the Romanscome and take away both our place
and nation. (48) they betray the self-interest which motivates them and affirm the truth of
Thus, in their claims to be true disciples of Moses, the true heirs of Abraham, and
28
children of God, the religious leaders make nothing so clear as their blindness to truth. Their
arrogance is illustrated in their response to those sent to apprehend Jesus: Are you also
deceived? Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed in Him? But this crowd that does
not know the law is accursed (7:47-49). So self-assured are they that their own disbelief is
now adduced as evidence against Jesus. And in their contemptuous dismissal of the crowd
that does not know the law it does not occur to them that this betrays their own failure. As
those tasked with shepherding Israel, they should have ensured that Gods sheep had been
more adequately fed. They hate Jesus for pointing out such shortcomings (7:7; 10:1-16) but
they would rather take his life than acknowledge the truth of his words and remedy their own
defects. This is not simply an epistemic failure, but a moral one. Were it simply a matter of
blindness, their sin could be overlooked. But they insist that no blindness whatever afflicts
them, and so their sin remains (9:41). Their entire position is grounded in self-deception and a
lie. They are afflicted by serious moral failures which issue in negative epistemic
consequences.
g. Summary
Despite references to the Jews, we have seen that unbelief amongst the religious rulers
issues from intensely personal roots, having nothing to do with ethnicity. Such unbelief is
personal in two respects: first, in that it involves the rejection of a person; second, in that it
stems from deep individual cognitive and affective deficiencies. We may say that faith, in
Johannine terms, involves commitment of persons to a person, but as the religious leaders are
unable to apprehend Jesus true identity and are unwilling to apprehend or seek remedy for
their own shortcomings, such commitment they cannot and will not make. This is
compounded by the fact that Jesus is the Incarnation of the divine Logos and so, in rejecting
Jesus, the religious leaders reject the very God in whom they claim to believe. Their rejection
is not simply passive, but issues in murderous hostilityso demonstrating the extent of their
29
ethical deficiencies. Yet failure to believe in Jesus and opposition to him do not necessarily go
hand-in-hand. We see this as we turn to a study of Nicodemus, whose epistemic status, despite
30
Chapter 3
Nicodemus
Although the Gospel generally portrays the religious leaders in very poor light, that treatment
is not monolithic. At points, there is evident hesitation on their part to act even when Jesus
directs forthright, public criticism in their direction (7:21-26). We also find followers of Jesus,
albeit secretly, amongst their number (12:42). Whatever general remarks we might then make,
it seems that at least some of the religious leaders struggled to come to terms with Jesus,
No character in Johns Gospel illustrates this more clearly than Nicodemus. A religious
leader (3:1) and the teacher of Israel (10), he appears three times in the Gospel (3:1-21;
7:45-52; 19:38-42) yet with no clear statement as to whether he chooses to accept or reject the
significance, but the nature of that significance remains elusive. He appears in the narrative
often enough to evoke curiosity, but not, it seems, often enough to satisfy it. 67 Yet this
ambiguity may, in and of itself, tell us much about the Johannine concept of faith. Certainly, it
67
Jouette M. Bassler, Mixed Signals: Nicodemus in the Fourth Gospel, Journal of Biblical Literature 108,
no. 4 (1989): 635.
31
a. Nicodemus in History and Tradition
It is quite remarkable that the Gospel gives Nicodemus such prominence without giving any
clear indication as to his status as a follower of Jesus. It is not unreasonable to suppose that he
is mentioned by name because he was known to the Johannine community. Yet after Jesus
burial Nicodemus entirely disappears from the annals of history and modern scholarship has
failed to locate any trace of the Nicodemus of History. 68 He makes an appearance in the
apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, a reworking of the earlier Acts of Pilate, and is venerated in
the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions as a saint. Yet such prominence is most
likely owed to Nicodemuss appearance in Johns Gospel and has little, if any, true historical
value. We might suppose that an educated religious leader such as Nicodemus, had he come to
believe in Jesus, would have ranked alongside Paul as a leading light in the early Christian
reputation would exceed that of Paul. That he remains unknown to history thus suggests that
Nicodemus did not, in fact, come to believe. We have nothing but speculation.
We are thus left to make what we can of Nicodemus three appearances in the Gospel.
The first, when Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night (3:1-21), clearly indicates some
inadequacy in his grasp of Jesus person. The other two, involving Nicodemus defence of
Jesus before the Sanhedrin (7:45-52), and his assisting Joseph of Arimathea in burying Jesus
(19:38-42), are narrative episodes open to various interpretations. Authors are divided as to
whether these episodes evidence a commitment to Jesus. My own view is that the account is
Galilean origins (7:41, 52), a major issue for his colleagues in the Sanhedrin (52), yet this is
clearly not decisive for Nicodemus. His involvement in Jesus burial can hardly be a legal
68
Some have identified him as Nakdimon ben Gorion but for various reasons most scholars reject this
association. See Keener, John, 1:535.
69
Keener, John, 2:1163-64.
32
The amount is too great for one concerned only with formalities, but also too great for one
who properly understands that Jesus burial will be a short-lived affair. Here we come full
circle to Nicodemus night-time encounter with Jesus following the cleansing of the temple
(2:13-21). It seems likely that Nicodemus, along with Jesus disciples, had not then
understood Jesus saying: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up (19). That
he now brings such an abundance of spices implies that he does not understand it even now,
for he clearly expects the Rabbi from Nazareth to remain in the grave.
Perhaps we can best summarise Nicodemus final state by pointing out what should be
obvious: the ambiguity is something which Nicodemus himself quite deliberately creates.
Whilst he is not hostile to Jesus, he has his own reasons for eschewing an overt declaration of
faith. Like the other religious leaders, Nicodemus has one eye to his religious status and
although he will not oppose Jesus, neither, for self-interest, will he oppose him. If we feel that
Nicodemus does nothing to clarify his position, then we ought to stop and consider that this is
The Gospels first reference to Nicodemus is the most significant given that only here do we
find any comment on the nature of belief. Much in the narrative, however, remains opaque.
Nicodemus was motivated to come to Jesus by virtue of his signs (3:2. cf. 2:23) but it does not
follow that he believed in Jesus at this time. At times the religious leaders employed official
and unofficial representatives (1:19, 5:15; 7:32; 11:46) and Nicodemus use of we (3:2) may
suggest he comes in that capacity.70 That he came by night (3:2) may be laden with
significance.71 That he came at all suggests he holds Jesus in some regard, as does use of the
title Rabbi (2). Such a title is, strictly speaking, inadequate by the canons of Johannine
Christology, but Jesus disciples frequent use of that term shows it does not exclude a deeper
70
Raymond Edward Brown, The Gospel According to John I-XII, vol. 1, The Anchor Bible 29 (Garden City,
NY: Doubleday, 1966), 137.
71
For a helpful discussion of the symbolism involved see Culpepper, Anatomy, 90-92.
33
grasp of Jesus significance (1:38; 4:31; 6:25; 8:4; 9:2; 11:8, 28; 13:13-14).
Once Nicodemus enters into discussion with Jesus, however, things become much clearer.
At some point, commentators are disagreed on precisely where, there is a transition from the
speech of Jesus to commentary by the narrator. But the very difficulty of locating the
transition suggests that taking the passage as a unity is not mistaken. There are three
significant elements in the narrative; Jesus inappropriate response to Nicodemus in v.3; the
epistemic implications of Johns vertical dualism;72 and the ethical or moral aspects of belief. 73
The second and third are discussed elsewhere, which leaves us only the first to consider here.
When Nicodemus greets Jesus, he appears to anticipate a discussion between religious equals.
But Jesus response quite derails that expectation: Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is
born again ( ), he cannot see the kingdom of God (3). The use of
leads to a well-known word play between born again or born from above. That word-play
works well in the Greek where the subsequent discussion will pick up on both ideas. It does
not, however, work in Aramaic thus giving rise to a significant question: precisely how much
does the Gospel owe to the theological creativity of early Christianity? Even if Jesus and
as many regard as unlikely, the ipsissima vox of Jesus, there is still clear evidence of
theological development in the Gospel and this is a critical epistemic issue to be considered.74
For the moment, however, I wish to consider the significance of this inappropriate
response.75 Were this the only incidence of such a phenomenon in the Gospel, it might be
placed aside as an interesting quirk. The Gospel, however, is peppered with such
discontinuities. Besides other instances where Jesus responses seem inappropriate (cf. 1:49-
72
Consideration of which I leave until later. See p.88ff.
73
See p.27ff.
74
See p.86ff.
75
The expression is taken from Countryman (Mystical Way, 6) and refers to the lack of obvious relevance to
Nicodemus preceding remark.
34
50; 4:9-10; 14:22-23), the presence of aporias and other discontinuities are a well-attested
feature of the Gospel.76 Many scholars feel such discontinuities can be resolvedsuggesting
that the Gospel was constructed from sources and that the various discontinuities survive as
evidence of this fact. Yet while this may explain discontinuities between passages in the
Gospel, it does little to resolve those, such as Jesus inappropriate response to Nicodemus,
The possibility thus exists that the various discontinuities in the Gospel are deliberate and
not mere clumsiness on the part of the author or editor.77 Carter observes:
some scholars have pointed out that features such as contradictions and awkward
sequences may suggest the opposite conclusion. In the world from which Johns gospel
originates, such mysteries can be signs of great skill employed to give appropriate
presentation to the gospels profound content.78
Countryman suggests that for the reader committed to fathoming the Gospelthey have the
effect of slowing ones pace, making one less self-confident, and compelling reflection. 79
Countryman adopts an approach which sees the Gospel as focused on progress toward
mystical union in the person of Jesus. 80 He compares this with the approach taken by
Socrates in Platos Dialogues and that of the author of On Rebirth, a tractate from the Corpus
Hermeticum. To this we might add the Zen Buddhist kan, a paradoxical riddle that yields its
insights only when one abandons usual thought patterns and adopts broader, more
contemplative approaches.81 Ultimately the aim of all such literary forms is to create liminal
space [which] induces a type of inner crisis to help us make a needed transition.82 I would not
76
For an overview, see chapter three of Gary M. Burge, Interpreting the Fourth Gospel, Guides to New
Testament Exegesis 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1992); chapter 6 of Warren Carter, John:
Storyteller, Interpreter, Evangelist (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2006); and, most especially, Culpepper,
Anatomy, 152-65.
77
Countryman, Mystical Way, 6.
78
Carter, John, 108.
79
Countryman, Mystical Way, 6.
80
Ibid., 1.
81
For a brief treatment of the relationship between the Zen Buddhist Koan and Christian thought, see Richard
Rohr, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer, Rev. and updated ed. (New York: Crossroad,
2003), 34-36.
82
Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See (Mulgrave, Vic., Aust.: John Garratt
Publishing, 2009), 48. Cf. Roy B. Zuck, Teaching as Jesus Taught (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1995),
206-07.
35
wish to argue that the Gospels notion of the needed transition matches that sought for in
Zen Buddhism, the Corpus Hermeticum, or Platonism, but this does not affect the substantial
pointthat the discontinuities found in the Gospel may be seen as a literary strategy
employed to force the reader to reconsider his or her perception of Jesus of Nazareth.
If the discontinuities do have deliberate purpose, it may well be that attempts to expunge
them serve only to stymie that purpose. OBrien writes about the Gospel serving to recreate
for the reader the experience of Jesus original hearers, 83 and we may say that if the Gospel
faithfully models Jesus mode of approach then discontinuities in the text will challenge the
reader in the same way as Jesus challenged his contemporaries. We may also imagine that the
sort of misunderstandings, and even resistance, Jesus encountered will be mirrored by readers
of the Gospel. This needs to be taken with the utmost seriousness by modern readers of the
Gospel. Richard Rohr speaks of the attempt to avoid the pain of transformation by avoiding
experiences which invoke transformation,84 and we may ask whether modern attempts to
eliminate discontinuities and recover the original form of the Gospel may not have a
negative epistemic impact. If one recalls my earlier remarks about Jesus religious opponents
being merely one particular historical instance of those shortcomings which manifest in all
religious traditions at various times, then one can see that the point has significant
contemporary relevance.
d. Summary
While Nicodemus ultimate epistemic status is uncertain, his portrayal in the Gospel still
offers us at least two significant insights. The first is that true faith has no necessary
connection with Jesus signs or teachingNicodemus has had at least some exposure to both
and yet does not come to confess Jesus as the Christ. The second is that the Holy Spirit plays
a critical role as epistemic agent, although unless one is willing and able to reappraise ones
83
Kelli S. OBrien, Written That You May Believe: John 20 and Narrative Rhetoric, The Catholic Biblical
Quarterly 67, no. 2 (2005): 285.
84
Rohr, Everything Belongs, 47-52.
36
outlook on things, even the Holy Spirit has little effect. Jesus inappropriate response
regarding being born can be seen as an attempt to jar Nicodemus out of the
commonplace line of thinking which informs his initial approach. Yet, ultimately, even the
sympathetic Nicodemus makes no affirmation of faith in Jesus. He, along with the other
religious leaders, proves a startling contrast to our next subject: a person who makes perhaps
the most remarkable profession of faith in the entire Gospelthe anonymous Woman of
Samaria.
37
Chapter 4
Few characters could provide greater contrast to Nicodemus than does the Woman of Samaria.
advantage. But just as their respective situations could not be more dissimilar, so too the
outcomes of their respective encounters with Jesus. Whereas Nicodemus engagement with
Jesus is long, lingering, and indecisive that of the Woman of Samaria is entirely the opposite.
It is a remarkable encounter given that, by all the standards of their day, she and Jesus had no
business engaging in conversation of any sort. Yet their exchange touches upon subjects of
such significance, and is narrated in so winsome a fashion, that it proves perennial in its
fascination.
condition which constitutes her primary problem. She needs thirst-quenching spiritual water
(4:10, 13-14) and will receive it as a consequence of her encounter with Jesus. Against this,
where one worships God is quite secondary and it transpires that Jesus seeks to radically
transcend, rather than to transform, those religious categories with which the woman is
familiar.
Of major interest is the manner in which Jesus engages with her, suggesting that the
38
concept of point of contact is a significant one. So too the idea of relationship, and the
account evidences a growing trust between the woman and Jesus in stark contrast to the
relational dynamic between Jesus and the religious leaders. Because of that trust, the woman
is prepared to reconsider her previous religious certainties and accept Jesus as the Messiah.
Johns Gospel is well-known for its use of irony and the account of the Woman of Samaria is
a prime instance. The account is spiced with narrative elements which bring out the
unfavourable nature of her situation and render the outcome of the story so contrary to the
The two most significant issues, her ethnicity (9, 7) and her gender (27), are specifically
mentioned, but there are other significant issues not immediately obvious to one unfamiliar
with her social context.85 For instance, it was highly unlikely that a woman of such social
standing would have much in the way of education, and in this she can be contrasted with
Jewish males in general and the religious leaders in particular.86 Further, it was considered
inappropriate for a Rabbi to address women in publica Jewish woman could even be
divorced for such unseemly behaviour87and this surely explains the disciples wonder that
Jesus spoke with a woman (4:27). There are even more subtle textual clues to patriarchy.
What to us is an innocent request for a drink of water, is scandalous in the context, 88 and so
the text offers what the original readers would regard as an important explanatory aside
(because his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food8). Greeks and Samaritans
were hardly less strict, and similar attitudes continue in the Middle East to this day. 89 Overall,
we may simply say that the contemporary Western reader is very likely to underestimate the
problematic nature of this encounter, the degree of contrast between the Samaritan woman
85
A particularly helpful overview is provided in chapters 14 and 15 of Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus Through
Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008).
86
Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993), 100-103.
87
Barrett, John, 200.
88
Keener, John, 1:597.
89
Ibid., 1:596-97.
39
and the Jewish religious leaders, and the extraordinary irony which therefore arises in light of
Despite the above mentioned difficulties, the primary issue confronting the woman is
spiritual. Jesus concern is, as always, with that which is from above not that which is of
the earth, and this is seen early in the account. He initiates conversation by asking for a drink
of water (4:7) but immediately moves to the womans need for living water (10). This term
(and the earlier gift of God) was used within Judaism to describe the Torah, and it may be
that such usage was mirrored in Samaritan circles.90 So Jesus may be here presenting himself
as the replacement for the Torah in which the Samaritans believed. Yet he goes on to say
whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall
give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life (13).
Identical language is later used to make unambiguous reference to the Holy Spirit (7:37-39),
so it seems correct to interpret living water as a reference to the Holy Spirit in the present
context.
The spiritual dimension is again emphasised when the woman inquires about the
Samaritan cultus over against the Jewish. Jesus affirms neither but asserts that;
the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit
and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who
worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. (23-24)
Jesus called Jews to transcend their religious traditions and he now challenges the Woman of
Samaria to do the same. He is no religious reformer seeking to purify the religious cultus.
Rather, he calls people to understand that he himself is the one who offers the gift of God by
which worship in spirit and truth is made possible, so transcending all religious tradition.
Just as Jesus encounter with the religious leaders focuses upon deeply personal issues, so too
90
Brown, John, 1:176.
40
his engagement with the Woman of Samaria. The deeply relational method of his approach is
shown when Jesus and his retinue stay as guests of the Samaritans for two days (4:40). This is
significant given that, contrary to the high stock generally placed on hospitality in the
Mediterranean world of the first century, it is hardly likely that Jews would be so received by
Samaritans (or vice versa). Jesus status as a Rabbi makes the situation even more problematic
as one should not show hospitality to false teachers, such as Jewish and Samaritan teachers
would regard each other to be.91 Yet Jesus does more than merely surmount mistrust:
the Samaritans receive Jesus with more than hospitality here; the pattern of going to meet
him (4:40a), inviting him to the town (4:40b), and calling him Saviour (4:42b) fits with the
way peoples embraced rulers, particularly the emperor. 92
Such hospitality obviously says something about the Samaritans attitude to Jesus. But it
also says something about Jesus attitude to the Samaritans. That he was comfortable
accepting their hospitality illustrates that Christian discipleship involves not just the believers
acceptance of Jesus, but also Jesus acceptance of the believer. This is seen throughout the
Gospel, from Jesus extension of hospitality to those who first follow him (1:39) through to
Further:
Under Jewish law, a slave could not inherit, no matter how many goods were left to him,
unless the will freed the slave or granted him all his masters goods (including himself; m.
Peah 3:8). There would be no point in Jesus promising to share his words or goods with the
91
Keener, John, 1:627.
92
Ibid.
93
See also the previous remarks concerning the Good Shepherd sayings (10:1-18). p.25.
94
Keener, John, 2:1006-11.
95
Ibid., 2:1010.
41
disciples unless they were friends not slaves. 96
As a true friend, Jesus is willing not only to share intimately with his disciples, but even to lay
down his life for their sakes (15:13). But friendship does not mean an end to Jesus lordship,
for his authority is in no way inconsistent with humble service and self-sacrifice. Thus, he can
set an example for the disciples by washing their feet (13:1-17) even whilst affirming his
status as Teacher and Lord (13).97 Thus, friendship means not freedom to disobey but an
to me that it is precisely the disciples status as friends which means that they are prepared to
recognise his lordship: it is the one who loves Jesus who will obey him (14:15-24) and such
It is not, however, just the twelve who enjoy this status as friends of God. 99 Ambrose
Here recall that Gods love is the motivational ground for the incarnation (3:16) and we
should not overlook the critical point that Johns Gospel portrays the divine-human encounter
as running both ways: the sort of intimate union Jesus promises the disciples is not merely
96
Ibid., 2:1013.
97
Jesus willingness to wash the disciples feet is significant. Footwashing was the most menial task
(Christopher Thomas, Footwashing in John 13 and the Johannine Community (Sheffield, Eng.: JSOT Press,
1991), 115) normally performed by a servant or dependent (Keener, John, 2:904). In the latter instance, wives
might wash the feet of their husband, children those of their father, or disciples those of their master as an
act of extreme devotion (Kruse, John, 280). Generally, disciples would do for their teachers almost
anything a slave would do except deal with their feet, which was considered too demeaning for a free person
(Keener, John, 2:911). In later Jewish tradition the task would be assigned to a slave, and a Gentile rather
than Jewish slave at that (Kruse, John, 280). Thus, washing the disciples feet was a singularly inappropriate
task for Jesus to perform, with Thomas describing Jesus action as unrivalled in antiquity (Thomas,
Footwashing in John, 115). See also the discussion in Keener, John, 2:901-10.
98
Ibid., 2:1015.
99
Raymond Edward Brown, The Gospel According to John XIII-XXI, vol. 2, The Anchor Bible 29A (Garden
City, NY: Doubleday, 1966), 683.
100
Ambrose, Duties of the Clergy, 3.22.135 cited in Joel C. Elowsky, ed., John 11-21, Ancient Christian
Commentary on Scripture: New Testament IVb (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007), 175-76.
42
a mystical experience but a relational encounter, for he gives it content with the term
love.101
believe his words indicates lack of trust in his person and refusal of the friendship and love
that he offers. Here consider how Abrahams willingness to believe God resulted in him being
declared the friend of God (James 2:23). Alongside Pauls discussion of Abraham in
Romans 4:9-22 we can see that Abrahams act of faith involved a willingness to exercise trust
in Gods promise despite the difficulties of his situation and this, ultimately, meant an
affirmation of Gods integrity. We should be careful not to confuse the Johannine concept of
faith with that put forward by other authors, and I adduce the example of Abraham merely to
illustrate a point; in seeking to bring people to eternal life through affirmation of the
Christological claim, the Gospel is calling people to affirm the veracity of Jesus testimony
and so the integrity of his person. The epistemic is thus intimately associated with the
relational. To confess Jesus as the Christ is to evidence trust in his word, and so in him. 102
Given all of this, that the Samaritans are willing to extend hospitality to Jesus and that they
confess him as Messiah may be taken together as demonstrating that they have come to trust
In his engagement with the Woman of Samaria, Jesus again uses inappropriate responses to
help her advance in her understanding.103 Two instances can be seen: when she voices her
perception that Jesus is a prophet (19); and when she introduces the concept of Messiah into
Jesus offer of living water (10-15) clearly intends to elevate the womans thoughts above
101
Keener, John, 2:1003.
102
Bultmann, Theology, 2:71.
103
Cf. p.34.
43
mundane matters but the spiritual implications initially elude her. Jesus responds with an
inappropriate response104 about her relational history (18) which strikes the woman as
prophetic (19). Some suggest that mention of five husbands alludes to five Assyrian gods
by which Samaritan religion was compromised.105 But the suggestion arises in light of Jewish
polemic against Samaritans and does not fairly represent Samaritan religion. 106 Samaritans
took samaritan to mean keeper, as in faithful keeper of the true faith, 107 and themselves
regarded the Jews to be the schismatics and religious compromisers. In the Samaritan view
of things, the Jews had abandoned Gerizim at Elis instigation, moving the tabernacle to
Shiloh, and falsifying the Pentateuch to justify their actions. Whatever the merits of such
claims, we can affirm that Samaritans were starkly monotheistic and just as committed to
Torah as were Jews. Talk of five Assyrian gods is thus quite irrelevant to the Samaritan
womans situation even if such an interpretation were not questionable on other grounds.108
Another suggestion is that Jesus was simply being unusually perceptive, but this too I
regard as improbable. One might infer, from her solitary trip to the well in the middle of the
day, that the woman was persona non-grata to her neighbours.109 One might even be able to
infer why this might be. But how could any casual observer infer the number of her previous
relationships? I agree with Kruse110 that we have here a case of super-human insight of the
104
Inappropriate in respect of the flow of conversation. One might also consider it inappropriate in other
respects, but I do not intend to invoke that meaning here.
105
Bultmann, John, 188n3.
106
Ingrid Hjelm, What do Samaritans and Jews have in Common? Recent Trends in Samaritan Studies,
Currents in Biblical Research 3, no. 1 (October 1, 2004): 9 -59.
107
On such a view the schism would date to around one thousand years BC. Modern scholarship, by contrast,
generally places the schism in the second century BC. Almost everything said by early Jewish or Samaritan
sources is therefore questionable in the extreme, particularly as it pertains to distinctions between the two
groups.
108
Here the second century BC dating of the Jewish/Samaritan schism is highly relevant for if the schism
occurred at such a date then the Samaritans of the first-century could be no more influenced by Assyrian
religion than were Jews of the same period. For a discussion of other difficulties see Keener, John, 1:606.
Should the number of the womans husbands beggar belief, consider Jeromes report of a woman who had
married no fewer than twenty-two times! (Letter XCCIII to Ageruchia, in Jerome: Letters and Select Works,
A Select Library of the Christian Church: Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Second Series. 6 (Peabody, MA:
Hendrickson, 2004), 233)
109
Western readers are apt to miss the significance of the point. It is not simply that her solitary trip infers she
has transgressed social norms. Rather, to appear alone in public, in a location where travellers are known to
congregate, is a transgression of social norms in itself. Bailey, Middle Eastern Eyes, 202.
110
Kruse, John, 132.
44
sort attributed to Jesus in 2:24-25: Jesusknew all men. He did not need anybody to testify
what is in men, for he knew all men. Certainly the woman herself considers that something
of this sort is going on and she voices her perception that Jesus is a prophet (4:19).
Taking Jesus to be a prophet she then raises the central religious issue in the Samaritan-
Jewish conflict: Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in
Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship (20). Contra Brown, I do not see this as
an attempt to deflect the moral question which arises in light of her questionable past. 111
Rather:
The womans question about the right place to worship (Jn 4:20) isentirely appropriate as
reflecting the issue that stood at the heart of Samaritan identity and is just the kind of easily
grasped popular polemic which someone of her status might have been expected to raise.112
It might be added that appeal to religious authority was, in Jesus day, a chief means of
religious questions (cf. Mt. 17:10; Mk. 9:28; Jn. 9:2) and once the woman identifies him as a
prophet, there is nothing particularly remarkable about the question she then puts to him.
Jesus response, however, is most certainly remarkable. Indeed, I consider its significance has
been overlooked as it seems to explain why the woman introduces Messianic speculations into
the discussion (4:25), and why she so readily accepts Jesus subsequent Messianic claim (26).
Remaining with verses 21 to 24 for the moment we see that Jesus makes three basic
affirmations: he critiques both Samaritan and Jewish understandings of sacred space (21); he
affirms the legitimacy of the Jewish as opposed to the Samaritan cultus (22); and he affirms
the spiritual nature of true worship (24) so reintroducing the earlier theme which had twice
111
Brown, John, 1:177. It is worth here noting that this claim of a questionable past is itself influenced not a
little by ones own theological and moral viewpoint. Consider, for instance, how Jeromes paraphrase of John
4:18 arises from his own particular view of sexual morality (Letter XCCII to Ageruchia in Jerome: Letters
and Select Works, 233.. See also the discussion in Craig S. Farmer, Changing Images of the Samaritan
Woman in Early Reformed Commentaries on John, Church History 63, no. 3 (1996): 365-75.
112
H.G.M. Williamson and Craig A. Evans, Samaritans. In Dictionary of New Testament Background, ed.
Craig A. Evans and Stanley E. Porter (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 1060.
45
failed to rouse the woman to the appropriate response (10, 13-14).
That a Jew would side with Jewish over against Samaritan approaches to worship is to be
expected and Jesus assertion that we know what we worship (22) is here unremarkable.
What is remarkable is neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem (21) for this renders void
the very idea of sacred space altogether. This conflicts with the fundamental importance of the
concept in Jewish and Samaritan thought. Indeed, the vehemence of their disagreement over
the location of the temple was due precisely to the enormous importance of the idea. The
woman thus presumes the notion of sacred space to be a given and wants to know whether
Jerusalem or Gerizim is the place ordained by God. That the entire concept of sacred space
might be secondary to the spiritual dimension of worship does not occur to her.
The great significance of this becomes evident only when we recall that the Samaritan-
Jewish disagreement was grounded in appeal to Gods disclosure to Moses as recorded in the
Pentateuch. Both groups, it must be understood, traced their religious traditions back to Gods
disclosure to Moses and both groups took the Pentateuch to be the bed-rock of their religious
understanding. Importantly, however, the Samaritan version of the Pentateuch varied from the
Jewish in one key aspectthe prescribed location of the divinely ordained sacred space. That
such a variation could occur in such an important document that is otherwise identical raised
an obvious question: who was it that introduced the variation? This question cuts to the heart
of Jewish-Samaritan dispute. It was not that they disagreed over the interpretation of an
identical text, but that their respective texts were unambiguously different at the critical point.
Somebody had tampered with the text, distorting Gods disclosure to his prophet Moses, and
the resulting strength of disagreement indicates how seriously this was taken. Thus, when
Jesus questions the very notion of sacred space he is, in effect, over-ruling both Jewish and
Samaritan declensions of the Pentateuch, so abrogating the Law given by Moses. He is, by
implication, donning the mantle of the prophet greater than Moses (Deut. 18:15-20) and I
46
doubt the impact this would have on the Samaritan woman can be overstated. It would be at
least as remarkable to her as was the cleansing of the temple in Jerusalem to the religious
leaders there.
The implications of Jesus rejection of sacred space can be understood only if one has a grasp
of the particular Samaritan understanding of prophet-hood and the Messiah. 113 At the outset
we should note that messiah was not a term used by the Samaritans but appears to have
been introduced by John in preference to the Samaritan term Taheb.114 The Taheb was to stand
in almost identical relation to the Samaritan community as had Moses with respect to Israel.
Essentially he would be Moses redivivus and would wield the same authority as Moses over
all matters of religious law and ceremony. Significantly, the Samaritans rejected the concept
of prophet-hood except as it applied to the Taheb. In large part, this was because the prophets
of Jewish tradition, in direct violation of the teaching of Moses as the Samaritans understood
it, affirmed the legitimacy of the Jerusalem temple. For the Samaritans there could only be
one prophet:
What sources from Samaritan tradition remain extant suggest that Samaritans denied
prophets after Moses, until the final prophet like Moses would arise (Deut 18:18). Thus the
prophet would be the Taheb, the restorer, a sort of messianic figure. If John and his
audience know this Samaritan teaching on prophets, calling Jesus a prophet may have been
tantamount to calling him the supreme revealer after Moses. 115
Barrett toys with this idea, but considers it not likely in view of the womans apparently
hesitant remark in v.25.116 Certainly, the most natural reading is that the difficult issues Jesus
raises will have to await Messianic clarification and that the woman does not, therefore,
113
The following discussion requires a most significant caveat due to the distance between the events in the
narrative and our earliest sources discussing the Taeb from the 4th century C.E. On this point see Moloney,
John, 133. Moloney is accordingly cautious: It is often asserted that the Samaritan figure of the Taeb stands
behind the womans use of the terms Messiah and Christ, one cannot discount that this Samaritan
background may be in mind, but it is fraught with difficulties. (ibid., 129). Such objections are weighty, but
it does seem to me unlikely that an inherently conservative group like the Samaritans, with a deep antipathy
toward Jewish corruptions of their ancestral religion, would import wholesale the particularly Jewish
notion of a Messianic figure into their religion without at least some basis in their tradition.
114
Williamson and Evans, Samaritans, 1060.
115
Keener, John, 1:610.
116
Barrett, John, 197.
47
regard Jesus as Messiah/Taheb. This is the view of Barrett, and it is shared by others. 117
Brown, by contrast, takes v.25 as evidence that the woman already regards Jesus as the
Messiah.118 Neither option seems to me to make satisfactory sense of the womans remark
The first thing to be accounted for is her apparent hesitation. This is particularly
problematic for Johns Gospel where claims about Jesus are couched in quite definitive terms:
You are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel (1:49), We know you are a teacher
come from God (3:2), This is truly the prophet who is to come into the world (6:14); Do
we not rightly say that you are a Samaritan and have a demon (8:48), and so on. As a matter
of narrative strategy, when characters in the Gospel make assertions regarding Jesus identity
we find that they are often in error, but never in doubt. So, contra Brown, I see the womans
remark here as simply too hesitant to be a Messianic confession (or denial) of suitably
Johannine form.
The second observation is that the narrative is converging upon the identification of Jesus
as Messiah by the woman and her fellow villagers (42). In this respect I consider that Brown
correctly identifies the trajectory of the conversation but disagree that v.25 indicates the
decisive moment has come. But precisely because the narrative moves in this direction and
because it reaches its culmination with Jesus response to this very remark, I find it
Surely some inkling of Jesus messianic identity is beginning to pervade the womans
consciousness and she is approaching a kind of cognitive tipping-point after which there will
be a downhill rush to the inevitable conclusion.119 We have seen Jesus rise in the womans
117
Cf. George Raymond Beasley-Murray, John, 2nd ed., Word Biblical Commentary 36 (Nashville, TN:
Thomas Nelson, 1999), 62; Bultmann, John, 192; Kruse, John, 135.
118
Brown, John, 1:177.
119
Moloney writes most appropriately of the womans burgeoning Messianic confession (John, 129).
48
prophet worthy of some respect. To suggest that, at the moment when the dawn of
understanding is so soon to break, the woman might abandon this line of thought, seems to me
quite unlikely. Just as the Gospel does not abandon the inexorable movement of the story to
its conclusion, I suggest that neither should we. The womans comment about the coming one
may well suggest some level of uncertainty, but I submit that in terms of plot it would be
strange to see the abandonment of a line of reasoning which stands in such close harmony
with the Gospels stated purpose, particularly given that line of reasoning comes to
fishing expedition. Here let us pause and consider what we know so far. The woman has had
reason to identify Jesus as a prophet when, as near as we can tell, she would have equated
the idea of a prophet with the prophet or Taheb. Jesus has dismissed the concept of sacred
space, so effectively abrogating the teaching of Torah in either its Jewish or Samaritan
declensions. In so doing he has elevated himself above Moses, the exemplar of prophet-hood
in Samaritan understanding. This must, in her mind, raise a fundamental question in regards
appropriate to read the womans comment as an implied question: I know Messiah is coming
and when he does he will tell us about all this. Are you the Messiah? 120 Later in the Gospel
we find a similar line of thinking by people who are specifically said to believe in him:
When the Christ comes, will He do more signs than these which this Man has done? (7:31).
Thus I take the womans remark in 4:25 to have dynamic equivalence with the question are
you the Messiah? This is supported by the fact that the very next step in the narrative
If we take it that the woman already suspects that Jesus might well be the Messiah, we
120
Moloney takes a similar view: She has addressed Jesus as a Jew (v.9), Sir (vv.11, 15, 19a), a prophet
(v.19b), and now she suggests that he might be a Messiah-Christ (v.25) (ibid., 129-30).
49
have a ready explanation for another curious aspect of the narrativeher willingness to
accept Jesus Messianic claim so readily when it is offered (26). With this understanding
Jesus remark can be seen as a confirmation rather than a revelation, its ready reception
illustrating that the woman is already largely convinced of Jesus Messianic status. Both the
trajectory of the narrative prior to verse 25, and its rapid move to a conclusion immediately
afterwards, suggest that v.25 should be seen as evidencing a strong suspicion on the womans
part that Jesus is the Taheb. Over the course of her engagement with Jesus, the Woman of
Samaria moves from a person who lacks an apprehension of spiritual things to accepting the
testimony of the one who affirms that I who speak to you am he.
On the basis of the tentative nature of the womans comment in v.25 I have questioned
Browns view that we here have a confession of faith. But by the same criterion how can the
equally tentative question in v.29 be taken as evidencing faith? It is true that most
commentators place the decisive moment of Messianic identification between the two verses,
with the abandoning of her water jar in v.26. 121 This seems quite reasonable given the flow of
the narrative, yet it does not serve to answer the question just posed. For that we need to give
Critical, however, is that there are actually two social contexts in this passage. The first is
obvious: the matrix of first-century Samaritan societya matter already considered. 122 What I
wish now to point out is that although the first-century Samaritan context informs the
womans interaction with her fellow villagers, it is hardly certain that it informs her
interaction with Jesus. Contemporary behavioural psychology informs us that context can
critically influence behaviour.123 I suggest that the context of the womans engagement with
121
Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John 15.30 cited in Elowsky, John 1-10, 165.; See also Karen
Heidebrecht Thiessen, Jesus and Women in the Gospel of John, Direction Journal 19, no. 2 (Fall 1990): 55.
122
See p.39.
123
Paul D. Meier et al., Introduction to Psychology and Counseling: Christian Perspectives and Applications,
2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1991), 163-72.
50
Jesus was so different from her ordinary day-to-day experience that we cannot assume that it
would proceed under the same rules which inform her interaction with her fellow Samaritans.
Although the Woman of Samaria may well have been regarded as, and forced to play the
role of, social inferior amongst her Samaritan compatriots, it is far from obvious that she
would have felt herself a social inferior to Jesus. It seems to me quite likely that she would
have regarded Jesus with that contempt which customarily existed between Jews and
Samaritans and that her being alone would be just the thing to deliver her from any
psychological pressure to maintain social conformity. Further, Jesus himself has already
transgressed the boundaries of social convention, acting in an entirely inappropriate manner. 124
The suggestion is borne out by her response. Not only does she chose to respond to Jesus
when she might well have maintained stony silence, but her attitude seems downright feisty
In contrast to common ideals of antiquity, the woman speaks boldly and forthrightly with
Jesus; in view of the expectation generated by the woman-at-the-well-type scene (esp Gen
24:18), her lack of deference would strike much of Johns audience as rude. 125
remark in v.25 because she has not yet come to faith. Yet she makes mention of Messiah
because Jesusgiven his authoritative, prophetic insightseems to her to fulfil the requisite
criteria. Jesus remark in v.26 then comes as an affirmation of her intuition. With that
confirmation, she accepts Jesus as Messiah, abandons her waterpot, and returns to the village.
But she now finds herself in an awkward position. She has news of enormous importance but
suggestion finds some support in her compatriots later reference to her news as (42) or
common talka turn of phrase which stands in rather stark contrast with the Johannine
124
Bailey, Middle Eastern Eyes, 202-03.
125
Keener, John, 1:158-59.
51
authors description of her words as or testimony (39).126 It seems that social
pressure, not any sense of uncertainty, causes her to confess Jesus as Messiah in a
Two considerations suggest that v.29 is not to be taken as tentative in any case. First is the
reaction of the Samaritan villagers. Whatever we might think, the villagers were moved en
masse to see this man of whom the woman spoke so highly. Later they would suggest that her
remarks had provided some initial grounds for belief (39). Second, we must recall that the
womans question articulates her understanding of Jesus. This being the case, we might ask
what the woman might have said if she viewed Jesus as less than the Messiah/Taheb. Surely if
she thought him to be merely a prophet she would have asked Could he be a prophet? And
if she thought him less than a prophet, why even mention him at all? Simply articulating the
form her question might then take serves to illustrate the point; Could he be a particularly
perceptive Jewish pilgrim? would border on the nonsensical. Indeed, only because she
publicly what would otherwise be regarded as a scandalous dalliance. It was the difficult
nature of her situation rather than any doubt on her part that led the woman to bear witness to
Jesus in what seems to us, if not her contemporaries, a quite circumlocutory manner.
e. Summary
In almost every respect the Woman of Samaria stands in stark contrast with the religious
leaders who so stridently oppose Jesus. Sharing none of their advantages and, by virtue of the
deep antipathy which existed between Jews and Samaritans, having even more reason than
they to reject Jesus, the woman nevertheless comes to trust Jesus and accept his claim to be
the Messiah. That she is willing to engage with Jesus and follow the conversation to its proper
conclusion shows that she suffers neither the cognitive nor the affective disabilities of the
126
Thiessen, Jesus and Women in the Gospel of John, 56.
52
religious leaders.127 The account thus demonstrates that the various contextual issues which
confront the womaneducation, gender, ethnicity, social status, and so onare secondary to
the primary issue, her need for living water. And although Jesus can be seen to play the part
of (the) prophet according to what we know of Samaritan belief, yet ultimately the woman
simply sees that his claim to be Messiah is credible and accepts it on that basis. She is not
the only character in the Gospel to come to such a conclusion on the basis of a personal
encounter with Jesus. Nathanaels experience of encounter with Jesus, and its outcome, proves
127
See p.23.
53
Chapter 5
Nathanael
Whilst Nathanaels story forms only a tiny part of the Johannine narrative, it nevertheless has
immense importance for our study of the Johannine account of Christian faith. It presages and
affirms much of the subsequent narrative, but also serves to raise thorny questions about
I begin by drawing attention to the context of the Nathanael story. So early in the
narrative is it, that we (and therefore we must presume Nathanael) have seen nothing of Jesus
signs nor heard anything of his teaching. Moreover, there is no reason to think that Nathanael
is familiar with the Baptists testimony in regard to Jesus in 1:19-34. That he knows nothing
of those insights the reader has gained from the prologue hardly needs mentioning. Yet
Nathanael is moved to confess that Jesus is the son of Godthe king of Israel after Jesus
has spoken only a few words. Such is the narrative in cursory outline. So brief is it, however,
that it is easy to pass over the interesting issues it raises. For convenience sake we may
consider these under three broad headings: the basis upon which Nathanael makes his
confession, what precisely his confession reveals about his understanding of Jesus, and the
light the passage throws upon the notions of faith and unbelief in Johns Gospel.
54
a. The Basis of Nathanaels Confession
The basis upon which Nathanael makes his confession is, even on a careful reading of the
text, quite unclear. All indications are that Nathanael first learns about Jesus through the
testimony of Philip (1:45) so his confession (49) must arise from what transpires in the few
intervening verses. But we find there little obvious basis for his confession. 128 That Philip
sought Nathanael out with the news about Jesus implies some close familiarity between the
two as well as some expectation on Philips part that Nathanael would find such news
interesting, perhaps even compelling. Despite this, however, Nathanaels response is negative;
Throughout the Gospel Jesus origin is a matter of ignorance and confusion for his
contemporaries. The Prologue makes his heavenly origin clear, but only the reader of the
Gospel enjoys this insight. For the characters of the Gospel things are more complicated.
Jesus signs signal divine approval and Messianic status (3:2, 7:31). This contributes to the
idea that Jesus is a teacher come from God (3:2) and this makes difficult any outright
rejection. Yet, in line with Nathanaels objection in 1:46 we find a fixation upon the question
of Jesus earthly origin (6:42). More often than not this leads to Jesus rejection.130
The assumption that we know where this man is from (7:27) is the real problem here,
for the fact is that his contemporaries are entirely ignorant on the matterthey know nothing
about either his earthly origin (which knowledge would answer their scriptural/theological
objections) nor, more importantly, his heavenly origin. Curiously, however, Jesus will charge
his hearers with the remark you both know me and know where I am from (7:28). It is a
128
That the Johannine account is an abridged version of a longer encounter is, of course, an obvious objection to
raise here. However, that very objection gives answer to itself for the simple reason that an abridgement of
any value should encapsulate the points of major significance. The Gospel author has told us all that he
believes we need to know such that, from the perspective of Johannine theology at least, any omitted aspects
of Nathanaels calling must be regarded as superfluous. They are certainly not recoverable and can play no
part in any sober analysis of the narrative.
129
Compare the ethnic and cultural hostility which underlies the account of the Samaritan woman we can
imagine her thinking can anything good come out of Judaism?
130
The same consideration must, given Samaritan views of the messiah, play on the mind of the Samaritan
woman even though any such reservation is not made explicit in the text.
55
claim which conflicts with treatment of the theme elsewhere in the Gospel, as well as with
Jesus later claim that you do not know where I come from and where I am going (8:14). It
has, accordingly, attracted a diverse range of interpretations. 131 If we allow that there might be
a spiritual perception of Jesus Messianic identity that people refuse to affirm, then the
explanation may prove relatively straightforward. They would know in one sense that Jesus
is more than merely human, but in failing to believe they would not know the full
Jesus Messianic identity not because they cannot apprehend it, but because they choose to
stifle that apprehension. They would be in a state of denial, failing to be entirely honest even
with themselves.
In Nathanaels case, however, the objection does not prove fatal, for Nathanael is
prepared to put his reservations on hold and accept Philips invitation to come and
see. (46)132 It is apparent that Nathanael is not at this juncture to be regarded as a believer but
this will change in startling fashion when Nathanael encounters Jesus. Two aspects of that
encounter are remarkable. First, the speed with which Nathanael is lead to confess that Jesus
is the Son of Godthe King of Israel (1:49). Second, the extraordinarily opaque nature of
the reasoning which lies behind that transformation. As the Gospel portrays it, only two
remarks by Jesus are necessary in order to move Nathanael from a curious observer willing to
This is a radical transformation on Nathanaels part, and we would expect that it occurs
because of some radical occurrence, yet it is not at all clear precisely what that occurrence
may be. Clearly Nathanael is responding to Jesus comments in v.47 (Behold, an Israelite
indeed, in whom is no deceit!) and v.48 (Before Philip called you, when you were under the
131
Brown translates 7:28 as a question (So you think you know where I am from?John, 1:311) and so too
Moloney (you know where I come from?John, 246). Beasley-Murray regards it as an admission
proceeding a qualification (Yes, youre quite right that Im from Nazareth, butJohn, 111). The proper
interpretation of the verse is hardly obvious.
132
Cf. the come, see of the Samaritan woman in 4:29.
56
fig tree, I saw you.) and it will require careful treatment to determine by what logic
Jesus remark in v.47 clearly stands in some relation to his ability to read people (cf.
2:25; he knew what was in man) and this point seems to me critical. I will discuss below
tradition, is cause for approval rather than criticism. For now, I note simply that Nathanael
obtains no answer to his objection regarding Jesus origins even though it would have been
easy enough to obtain: I was born in Bethlehem, is all Jesus need say. What we see instead
guile (47). This might be taken as nothing more than servile flattery if not for the second part
of the response, an enigmatic Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I
saw you. (48). That Philip called Nathanael might have been nothing more than inference
from the fact that Philip brought Nathanael to Jesus. But the subsequent reference to the fig
tree has greatly puzzled commentators. Amongst other explanations have been suggestions
that it is a metaphorical allusion to study of the Law, 133 to the shadow of sin,134 or to worldly
temptation.135 Yet these, I suggest, are rather too mundane to account for Nathanaels
response. Indeed, it is his response which I regard as the key to the narrative, for it is
explicable only if Jesus remark about the fig tree, so very obscure to us, is sufficient to
Nathanael acknowledges Jesus Messianic identity despite his reservations regarding Jesus
I can think of no other explanation than to affirm the utter obscurity of Jesus remark.
rendered entirely inexplicable. But if we regard it as grounded in the same sort of supernatural
133
Keener, John, 1:486.
134
Augustine, Sermon 174.4 cited in Elowsky, John 1-10, 85.
135
Ambrose, Concerning Virgins 1.1.3-4 cited in ibid.
57
insight which we see in places such as 4:17-18, thus a remark the deep significance of which
only Nathanael could possibly grasp, then we can make some sense of Nathanaels abrupt
transition from doubter to believer. His relationship with Philip has given Nathanael some
knowledge of Philips character, and so some prima facie justification for accepting his
testimony. So when Philip claims he has found the one of whom Moses in the law, and also
the prophets wrote then Nathanael does have something like evidence for believing Jesus to
be the Messiah. Nathanael has questioned this claim on the basis of a quite legitimate
objection, grounded in Jewish Scripture, regarding Jesus origins. But Jesus prophetic word
unanswered objections and leads him to affirm Philips claim by proclaiming Jesus to be the
It is helpful to consider precisely what Nathanaels confession reveals about his understanding
thought-world and the point of Jesus do you believe? (50) must then be that Nathanaels
faith is inadequate even in terms of Johannine Christology. Yet recognition of Jesus as the
Christ and Son of God is the Gospels raison dtre (20:31) and this means we must inquire
why the Gospel portrays a confession such a Nathanaels in a negative light. An important
clue is found later in the Gospel where many disciples turn away (6:60-71), leading Jesus to
question the commitment even of the Twelve (67). In that episode the crowd, having
identified Jesus as the Prophet who is to come into the world (6:14), purpose to take him by
force and make him king (15). Jesus refusal to take to himself such a dubious honour, and his
highly contentious living bread teaching (6:22-59), indicates that the crowd have radically
misconstrued the nature of his ministry despite their earlier confession being technically
correct. Clearly it is one thing to ascribe to Jesus the title of the Prophet or the Christ or,
58
as Nathanael does, the King of Israel. It is another thing altogether to grasp that titles true
significance and to respond appropriately. Moloney correctly suggests that such confessions
are bound by culture, religion, and history, 136 and this has inevitable implications for
understanding. Many of Jesus contemporaries clearly used the right terms, but due to
cultural, religious, and historical factors, endued them with a host of misunderstandings.
Because of this risk of misunderstanding, the Gospel not only affirms Jesus Messianic
identity but also seeks to clarify what that identity entails. For Jesus contemporaries
Messiah was one who would physically reign as king over a re-established Jewish state. For
the Johannine author (writing from a post-resurrection perspective) Messiah would be the
Lamb of God who would give his life for the sins of the world. In that context we should not
the second part: You are the King of Israel! His confession was certainly laudable as far as
it goes, but it may well have been too ridden with misconceptions to pass without scrutiny. A
parallel case exists with claims that Jesus was from God (3:1; 9:33). Many Messianic
pretenders made just that claim, but this meant no more than to have been chosen by God in
order to deliver Israel from its enemies. Those making such a claim could easily gather a large
following quite willing to resort to violent action in pursuit of a political agenda. However,
Jesus claim to be from God was of a vastly different order. He does not claim to be an
ordinary human chosen for political and military leadership, and although he will certainly
shake the foundations of the established order, he will not do so by force of arms. Rather, he
proclaims himself to be the Son of God, standing in unique relationship with the Father and
decisive for all humanity. It is hardly surprising that Jesus contemporaries, perceiving the
magnitude of his claim but unable to comprehend his identity or purpose, therefore dismissed
It is important that we not be too negative in our appraisal of Nathanael, however, for
136
Moloney, John, 56.
59
although Jesus questions Nathanaels confession he adds an extraordinarily positive remark:
You will see greater things than theseyou shall see heaven open, and the angels of God
ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. (50-51) Clearly Nathanael is going on to
bigger and better things, and, indeed, he will be found to be with Jesus at the end (21:1). It is
important, however, that we stop to consider the allusion which Jesus is making to Jacobs
dream at Bethel (Gen. 28:10-22). There, awakening from a dream in which he sees angels
ascending and descending between heaven and earth, Jacob declares Surely the Lord is in the
place, and I did not know it.This is the house of God, and this is the gate of
heaven! (16,17) Here we have another appropriation of Old Testament imagery of the sort
common in the Gospel (cf. 2:19-21, 6:35, 15:1 et passim). Such imagery suggests that Jesus is
superseding) the various institutions which were the core expression of Judaism. Of critical
importance for present purposes is Jacobs awestruck I did not know it together with the
mundane ordinariness of the location. Prior to his dream Jacob had no notion that the Lord is
in this place, nor would it be apparent to later passers-by who would see only a nondescript
stone pillar. Jesus, too, is singularly inconspicuous: There stands among you one you do not
know (1:26) and the majority pass by oblivious to his divine origin or messianic identity.
There are, however, those to whom Gods revelation will come and these will share Jacobs
amazement in encountering the living God in an unexpected quarter. Nathanael is one such,
the Woman of Samaria another. No ordinary epistemological account will prove adequate to
explain that insight into reality which can only be given from above.
Nathanaels story throws no small light on the notions of faith and unbelief in the Gospel.
That faith is spiritual in nature, grounded in some sort of spiritual perception, would explain
the lack of any obvious basis for Nathanaels confession in v.49. The absence of any sign of
60
the sort narrated elsewhere in the Gospel is significant given that such absence does not rest at
all easily with the narrative strategy. I discuss this elsewhere137 and all that need be said here is
that Nathanaels story comprises part of that sustained critique which the Gospel offers
against the idea that the relationship between signs and faith is a simple one.
The Gospel also suggests an interesting relationship between scripture and faith. Here we
should not overlook the fact that Nathanaels objection concerning Jesus origin is grounded
in scripture and, to that extent, comprises grounds for praise rather than criticism. Chrysostom
suggests that Jesus praises Nathanael (an Israelite without guile) precisely because he was
prepared to submit Philips claim to have found the Messiah to the test of scripture:
Nathanael had considered the writings of the prophets more than Philip. For he had heard
from the Scriptures that Christ must come from Bethlehem, and from the village in which
David wasso when he heard that Jesus was from Nazareth, he was confounded and
doubted, not finding the announcement of Philip to agree with the prediction of the
prophet.138
Thus, although Philip appeals to the writings of Moses and the prophets (45), it is Nathanael
who evidences the clearer grasp of their message. Moreover, Nathanael is hardly the only
person who will voice such an objection and we find that the question of Jesus origin
reoccurs time and again. The objection is clearly an important one, and it is therefore
We may in the first instance helpfully contrast the approach taken to the question of
Jesus origins in Johns Gospel with that taken in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. These
both recount the curious circumstances of Jesus birth and infancy, thus making clear from the
outset that those who reject Jesus because of his earthly origins do so because of a
misconception. Johns Gospel, however, takes a quite different approach. Here Jesus earthly
origins remain shrouded in mystery such that the reader to some extent shares the problem
which confronts Jesus contemporaries: how can Jesus of Nazareth be Messiah when Moses
137
See p.22.
138
Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of John 20.1 cited in Elowsky, John 1-10, 84.
61
and the prophets seem to deny the possibility? The Gospel resolves this problem through a
sustained focus on Jesus heavenly origin. This is most starkly seen in the Prologues account
of the pre-existent Logos, but this is bolstered by reoccurring references to Jesus heavenly
origin throughout the Gospel. By making Jesus heavenly origin clear from the outset, the
Prologue establishes the irony for which the Gospel is renowned. Aware of Jesus heavenly
origin the reader is permitted a wry smile at the objection which Nathanael raises in 1:46, and
Yet we should not too quickly pass over the fact that the expectations of Jesus
contemporaries were held on the basis of what Moses in the law, and also the prophets,
wrote. Given the significance of the issue, it was entirely appropriate for them to ask to what
extent any individual, Jesus included, fulfilled the requisite scriptural criteria. The prima facie
legitimacy of their objection, however, survives only as long as it takes for us to observe that
all appeals to scripture in support of whatever position are exegetically conditioned. All too
often there is an inability to recognise that ones reading of scripture might be in errora
point the Gospel itself makes (5:39-40). There is, it turns out, the possibility that exegetical
tradition can obscure rather than clarify the message of Scripture. We might here return to
Chrysostom: These sayings were not on the surface or out in the open but hidden very deep
like some treasure. Anyone who searches for hidden things, unless they are careful and
diligent, will never find the object of their search. 139 It was lack of care and diligence which,
according to Chrysostom, was precisely the problem facing Jesus contemporaries who did
not actually listen to what the Scripture had to say but merely prided themselves on the bare
reading.140
Here it is interesting to note that the issue of Messiahs origin is not so clear-cut as those
influenced by Christian tradition might suppose. In that tradition there exists the perception
139
Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of John 41.1, cited in ibid., 205.
140
Ibid.
62
that the Jewish scriptures very strongly and very clearly locate the birth of messiah in
Bethlehem. The Synoptic infancy narratives, especially the citation of Micah 5:2 in Matthew
2:4-6, have played no small part in forming this perception. One may well be surprised, then,
when one turns to the Jewish scriptures and finds that not only does Micah 5:2 stand alone in
connecting the birth of messiah to Bethlehem, but that it does so in rather ambiguous fashion.
That ambiguity is seen in Jewish tradition where messiahs origin is a matter of much
conjecture. It is an ambiguity well portrayed in the treatment of the theme in the canonical
gospels. Here we have the Bethlehem tradition recorded in the Synoptics, but also the
characters of Johns Gospel voicing a range of opinions. Some seem to have a clear
expectation regarding messiahs origin (1:46; 7:52) whilst others claim that when the Christ
comes, no one knows where He is from (7:27). Amongst Christians such questions were
settled by the historical fact of Jesus birth in Bethlehem 141 but for a first-century Jew the
question was, or should have been, a live one. And it is this should have been which is the
rub, for given the lack of clear scriptural proclamation on the matter, and given the resultant
exegetical uncertainty, it should be clear that the only way in which any of Jesus
contemporaries could reject Jesus on the basis of his purported birthplace was to give undue
credence to exegetical tradition. Thus Jesus critique of those who search the scripturesbut
are not willing to come to me (5:39-40). Add to this the fact that Jesus was not, in fact, of
Nazareth or from Galilee and we have a dangerous mix of dogmatism and ignorance:
dogmatism regarding the interpretation of scripture and ignorance regarding Jesus true origin.
Against this background we now see how Nathanaels encounter with Jesus provides a
141
Here I take it that the belief that Jesus was born in Bethlehem preceded the early Christian appropriation of
Micah 5:2 as Messianic proof-text. In so doing, I am consciously rejecting the claim that the Gospel birth
narratives were tailored in order to follow Jewish messianic expectationsthose expectations, as I argue in
the text, being hardly so definitive as to make such an accommodation necessary, or even possible, in any
case. Thus, I affirm the principle expounded by Boussett: Das Verhltnis ist vielmehr umzukehren:
unmittelbar im Kult sich uernde Frmmigkeit ist das erste, dann kommt die Schriftgelehrsamkeit hinzu
which Thyssen paraphrases as The doctrine comes first. The learned scriptural demonstration comes
afterwards. (cited in Henrik Pontoppidan Thyssen, Philosophical Christology in the New Testament.,
Numen: International Review for the History of Religions 53, no. 2 (April 2006): 136).
63
micro-study in the internal logic of the Gospel as a whole and thereby its importance in the
narrative. The objections which arose in respect of Jesus origins should be seen as grounded
in an exegetical tradition which has ossified to such a point that certain legitimate options are
no longer open for consideration. Such objections entail a certain blindness to alternative
traditions in the light of experience. It is precisely the willingness to put aside his
preconceptions and to allow his encounter with Jesus to shape his understanding which marks
Nathanael out as an Israelite in whom is no guile (1:47). What we have here, in narrative
terms, is a declaration early in the Gospel which condemns as illegitimate the sort of
objections which we find in 1:46, 7:27, and 7:52, thus making clear that the exegetical
tradition regarding Messiahs origin is insufficient reason to reject Jesus as Messiah. Those
who cling to tradition are here doubly blind for not only can they not see Jesus as he truly
is, they can not, because of their own self-important posturing, see the shortcomings of their
own positionsubstantially the same point made in passages such as the story of the man
born blind (cf. 9:41 in particular), and the Woman of Samaria (4:1-21).
d. Summary
While Nathanael, by virtue of his gender and Jewishness, enjoys a number of advantages over
the Woman of Samaria, the account gives us no reason to conclude that these play any
significant part in his identification of Jesus as the Christ. Indeed, like the Woman of Samaria,
Jesus initially confounds Nathanaels religious expectations and we may take it that his
willingness to reconsider his previous religious certainties is precisely what leads Jesus to
proclaim him a true Israelite, in whom is no deceit. Further parallels to the Woman of
Samaria are seen in absence of signs from the narrative, and Jesus deeply personal and
prophetic insight by which Jesus transcends ordinary categories of thought and wins
acknowledgement of his Messianic status. Unlike the later account of the Woman of Samaria,
64
however, we find no allusion to the Holy Spirit here. We do, however, find a most curious
critique of Nathanaels confession which, considered against the Old Testament background,
suggests that Nathanael will come to see Jesus with spiritual eyes. Nathanael must go
beyond the understanding of Jesus expressed in his initial confession, and this points to a
major theme in the Gospelthat of discipleship. This is, roughly, the idea that the sine qua
non of Christian faith is relationship with Jesus and that such relationship can be had even
whilst one remains to some extent uncertain, perhaps even mistaken, regarding Jesus
teachings and person. The point will be amply illustrated in our next study where we consider
those men who, together with Nathanael, were the closest of Jesus companions.
65
Chapter 6
The Twelve
We turn now to that core group of Jesus disciples referred to as the Twelve. These men are
notable because of their intimacy with Jesus and their prominence in the early Christian
movement, and we might expect that these first and, ostensibly, most committed of Jesus
followers would be the model of Christian discipleship. Yet whilst their commitment to Jesus
is largely beyond question, their grasp of his teaching and person is often woefully deficient.
From first to last one of their most notable characteristics is their obtuseness. I will argue that
the Twelve are, in fact, to be taken as model disciples but only when we rightly grasp what
Of Jesus twelve disciples, only four besides Nathanael find particular mention in the first
chapter of the Gospel: Andrew and an unnamed disciple (35-40), Andrews brother Simon
Peter (41-42), and Philip (43-44). I take their experiences as representative, however, and will
speak of the calling of the Twelve despite the obvious numerical shortfall. The text locates
their respective encounters with Jesus in Bethabara beyond Jordan, where [the Baptist] was
baptising (28, cf. 43). Although very cursory, the accounts are of no small significance. The
signs of Jesus are prominent by their absence and this, as I remarked in the case of Nathanael,
66
serves to subvert the Gospels declared narrative strategy.142
In many respects, Jesus relationship with the Twelve was quite normal:
John portrays the relationship between Jesus and his closest followers in terms of the
customary teacher-disciple relationship in first-century Judaism. This entails Jesus assuming
the role of teacher by instructing his disciples through word and action, protecting them from
harm, and providing for their needs; and the disciples assuming the role of faithful
followers, including the performance of menial tasks and the perpetuation of their Masters
teaching.143
Thus we see that the Twelve are routinely found in Jesus company: at the wedding in
Cana (2:2, 12); in Samaria (4:27); by the sea of Galilee (6:3); and at the raising of Lazarus
(11:7,16,54). Although not a prominent theme in the Gospel, we do find evidence that the
Twelve participated in Jesus ministry (4:1-2, 38). Whatever their faults, they are with Christ
from the beginning and will bear witness to him at the end as the backbone of the early
Yet there is one significant difference. In contrast to the normal practice of first-century
Jewish Rabbis who took for their disciples those who approached them, Jesus chooses his
disciples for himself.144 This is, in part, a consequence of his self-understanding. He relied on
his consciousness of having been sent by God and his resultant spiritual authority rather than
on rabbinic training.145 It is clear that Jesus, like other Rabbis, seeks to attract a following,
yet he is willing to reject (2:24) and offend (6:22-71) those who would be his followers. Here
his ability to read a persons character and circumstances is important. Such an ability lies
behind his choosing of the Twelve (6:70-71; 15:19. cf. 1:47-48; 2:23-25; 4:17-18). There are
some remarks which concern the Twelve in particular: they were given to Jesus by the Father
(17:6); they are not of the world (15:19; 17:14,16) just as Jesus was not of the world
(17:6); and for this reason he chose them out of the world (15:19). I take these to be a
particular application to the Twelve of the Gospels general remarks regarding those who
142
See pp. 22 and 60.
143
Andreas J. Kstenberger, Jesus as Rabbi in the Fourth Gospel, Bulletin for Biblical Research 8 (1998):
100-101.
144
Craig S. Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), 203.
145
Kstenberger, Jesus as Rabbi, 109.
67
become followers of Christ.
The later prominence of the Twelve, therefore, is not simply a matter of mere historical
circumstance. Jesus choice of the Twelve is decisive, but this choice is intimately related to
his ability to read people. Jesus calls these particular men to be his most intimate disciples
precisely because he sees what he can expect of them: faithfulness from beginning to end.
This alone marks the Twelve out from all others. Certainly they are not chosen for their
profound grasp of who Jesus is, and what he has come to do. Clearly the Twelve also make a
choice to follow Jesus, but it is moot to argue where the prerogative lies. The Gospel lays
emphasis upon the one who gives light to every person (1:9), and so the faithfulness of the
Twelve is expressed as a matter of the Fathers gift, Jesus power and Scriptural fulfilment:
Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition,
The pre-existing personal relationships amongst the Twelve are of no small importance in that
they provide a network along which news of Jesus the Messiah can spread. Philips witness to
Nathanael (45) merely implies some such pre-existing relationship, but otherwise the point is
brought out quite explicitly. Andrew and his unnamed companion are fellow disciples of John
the Baptist (35) while Andrew and Simon Peter are brothers. Philip, who responds to Jesus
rather curt follow me (43), is from the home town of Andrew and Simon Peter (44). Not
every person who becomes a follower of Jesus does so within such a relational context, of
course. One thinks in particular of the the Woman of Samaria (4:1-42) who is separated from
Jesus by virtue of gender, ethnicity, religion, and social standing and yet comes to confess him
as the Christ. Yet even here establishment of trust is an important matter. 146 At an even higher
level, we should not overlook the fact that Johns Gospel is itself testimony in written form
which the reader is urged to accept as a credible account of the person and work of Jesus
146
See p.40.
68
Christ. Even the very nature of the narrative is such as to solicit the readers trust. 147 Further,
once a decision to follow Jesus is made, the person then becomes part of a community in
which Jesus Messianic identity is confessed and further revealed. Overall, we may say that
there is a good case for the view that the knowledge of Jesus Messianic status is a socially
mediated form of knowledge, and that testimony is a prime epistemological category in the
acceptance. It is unremarkable, then, that the theme of relationship should find prominent
Christological significance: Lamb of God! (1:35), Rabbi (38), Messiah (41), Him of
whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote (45), and RabbiSon of GodKing
of Israel! (49). These are not all of equal significance in the Gospel. The first, Lamb of
God, does not appear again in the Gospel and we can make little of it. Indeed, its meaning is
unclear even to modern scholarship.148 Rabbi is a common honorific title which has no
necessary connection to messianic concepts (cf. 3:26) and is found on the lips of those such as
remaining three titles are overtly messianic yet, as Jesus retort to Nathanael implies, 149 their
use need not indicate a deep understanding of their significance. Indeed, the passage in which
these titles occur is bracketed by narrative elements which suggest that the full import of the
titles was not fully appreciated at the first. Andrew and his unnamed companion (35-40) were
surely privy to the events narrated in vv.19-27, yet it hardly seems likely that they were any
more perceptive than either the religious leaders who failed to identify the Messiah (26) or
147
Culpepper, Anatomy, 48-49.
148
A brief discussion of the issues can be found in I. Howard Marshall, Lamb of God, in Dictionary of Jesus
and the Gospels, ed. Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight, and I. Howard Marshall (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 1992), 432-34.
149
See p.58.
69
their own master who acknowledged that I did not know him (31). Likewise, the account of
the wedding in Cana (2:1-11) is significant inasmuch as it is only here, after the first of Jesus
signs, that the disciples are said to believe (11). The implication of this is that the disciples
initial confessions are not indicative of full understanding, from which it follows that faith is
progressive in nature.150 Not surprisingly, then, Gospel portrays an increasing grasp of Jesus
Brown has suggested that these early confessions are actually a retrojection of post-
resurrection understandings of Jesus identity, using the occasion of the disciples call to
summarise discipleship in its whole development.151 I regard this as plausible, but it should
not lead us to conclude that Jesus followers could not have used such titles from the first
albeit in some limited sense. This begs the significant question as to how Jesus followers
initially understood him. It seems to me obvious that they must have had some grasp of his
person and significance, for they would not have been his followers otherwise. It also seems
obvious that this understanding would expand and deepen as they lived in relationship with
Jesus, seeing his signs, hearing his teaching, and, most important, gaining insight into his
character. There seems to me no difficulty in placing such confessions in the mouths of the
first disciples, only we may not, as Brown correctly implies, imagine that they meant by them
Nathanaels confession apply and I reiterate the earlier suggestion: that the Gospel both
asserts Jesus Messianic identity and expounds what the concept of Messiah entails. 152 Indeed,
at least one author argues that guiding the reader in just such progressive illumination is the
I conclude that even though those mentioned in 1:35-42 certainly follow Jesus because
150
Brown, John, 1:105.
151
Ibid., 1:78.
152
See p.58.
153
Countryman, Mystical Way.
70
they regard him as the Lamb of God, Rabbi, Messiah, and so on, the use of these titles
is no certain indicator that those using them have any profound insight into their significance.
Such a perception is reinforced as we follow the portrayal of the Twelve in the remainder of
the Gospel. It is, in my view, best to regard 1:35-51 as serving a similar purpose to the
Prologue: providing the reader with insights which may inform the reading of the text even
though I certainly consider it so likely as to be nearly certain that the disciples would have
Whilst the Gospels portrayal of the Twelve is anything but idealised it is nevertheless not as
negative as it might be. We see this in the Johannine account of the feeding of the multitude
(6:1-71) which omits a number of negative elements found in the Synoptics. The Gospel
includes mention of Jesus walking on the sea (15-20) noting that the twelve were afraid at the
sight (19). In the Markan account of a similar episode (Mk. 6:45-52) the disciples response is
attributed to their misunderstanding of the miracle of the loaves and fishes (52). The different
order of events in Johns Gospel makes inclusion of such a comment impossible, but we
should not miss that the fundamental point of the Markan aside is to point to the disciples
limited grasp of Jesus messianic identitywhich point surely applies in the Johannine
passage yet passes without comment. All four Gospels conclude the feeding of the multitude
with the Petrine confession (Jn. 6:66-69. cf. Mt. 16:13-20; Mk. 8:27-30; Lk. 9:18-21)
although Johns Gospel replaces Jesus stinging rebuke of Peter (Get behind me, Satan! -
Mt. 16:23; Mk. 8:33) with the ambiguous: Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you
is a devil? (6:70). A parenthetical remark informs us that this is a reference to Judas (71).
Finally, only Johns Gospel mentions a failed attempt by the crowd to make Jesus king by
force (6:15) which failure ends in many turning away (66). The Twelve, unphased by this turn
71
of events, remain faithful to Jesus. Thus, the Johannine account lays emphasis upon their
Otherwise, however, the Gospel makes clear the Twelves failure to comprehend Jesus
full significance. In the account of the Woman of Samaria (4:27-38) they fail to grasp the
missional nature of Jesus ministry. That Jesus regards a woman as worthy of consideration
amazes them (27), a fact connected to their inability to grasp the widespread human need
which lies all around them (35) and which drives Jesus actions (32). The same lack of
comprehension is shown at the raising of Lazarus (11:1-44). This event is of great importance
in the Gospel154 serving to illustrate that the Father has granted Jesus full power over death
(5:21, 25, 28-29; 6:40; 10:17-18). Yet none of the characters display any appreciation that
Jesus is the resurrection and the life (11:25). Neither do Jesus opponents grasp this. For
them the raising of Lazarus is the last straw, leading them to take what would have been
decisive action against any other than the Lord of Life himself (45-54). The Lazarus pericope
merely implies what the Gospel elsewhere makes explicit, namely that the time when the
Twelve will properly grasp Jesus identity lies in the future. Not in the resurrection of Lazarus
will the disciples apprehend Jesus to be Lord of Life, but the fulfilment of his claim to be able
to lay down his own life and take it up again (10:17-18). Until then, there is much that the
The Twelves lack of comprehension continues to be seen during, and beyond, their last hours
with Jesus. In Jesus symbolic washing of the disciples feet (13:1-17) they do not
understand (7) an act which is representative of Jesus entire concept of leadership (16) and
which carries implications for the disciples own behaviour (17). The Farewell Discourse
the Father and it is sufficient for us (14:8), Jesus responds by asking Have I been with you
154
Kostenberger, Theology, 228-230.
72
so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so
how can you say, Show us the Father? (9). Contrary to Peters protests that he is willing to
die for Jesus sake (13:37), Jesus predicts his three-fold denial (38). Peters misplaced self-
confidence and eventual failure is representative of the Twelve as a whole (15:31-33 cf.
11:16). This failure may be traced to an inadequate faith which cannot withstand the hour of
trial (16:30b-31). That the trial has been predicted beforehand (15:32) and words of
encouragement spoken (14:27-31) ought to issue in belief (14:29; 16:1-4 cf. 11:42). In the
event, this only serves to make failure of belief all the more poignant when it occurs. There is
an interesting moment in this discussion when Jesus acknowledges that I have spoken to you
in figurative language; but the time is coming when I will tell you plainly about the
Father. (16:25). Momentarily, the disciples respond positively (29-30) but Jesus again
questions their understanding (31-32). As the narrative continues, we see Peter, lacking an
appreciation of what Christ must do, lash out at those who come to arrest him (18:10-11). The
scattering of the Twelve following Jesus arrest is not mentioned, but later we find them in
Even after the resurrection, the portrayal of the Twelve is reserved. The first witness to
the resurrection is not one of the Twelve, but Mary Magdalene (20:11-18) who is the first to
visit the tomb (20:1) and reports the resurrection to Simon Peter and the other disciple,
whom Jesus loved (2). Both come to the tomb and one believes (8) even though they did
not know the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead (9). The two return home (10)
leaving Mary Magdalene behind to become the first witness of the risen Christ (11-17). This
she reports to the disciples (18). That such an honour goes to a woman is remarkable given
first-century attitudes on gender issues. In the Markan account the disciples disbelieve Marys
report (Mk. 16:11) but, as in the account of the feeding of the multitude, Johns Gospel omits
any such negative comment. Yet the theme of misunderstanding continues. The familiar story
73
of doubting Thomas (20:24-29) contains a the demand for hard evidence which is a matter
of frequent comment. Yet we should not overlook the fact that the Twelve, who were gathered
in secret for fear of the Jews (19), only became glad when they saw the Lord after they
themselves received exactly this same evidence (20). The final post-resurrection appearance
by the sea of Galilee continues to imply a lack of full apprehension (21:1-14). A failure to
recognise Jesus when he appears (4) suggests to me that mention of a return to previous
occupations is significant: it appears that, despite Jesus teaching in the farewell discourse, the
disciples had yet to grasp Gods future intentions and the part they would play in bringing
them about. It seems they had not grasped the significance of Jesus earlier talk of an ongoing
e. Summary
Although the Twelve are convinced of Jesus Messianic status, and their personal loyalty to
him is largely beyond question, they still evidence a remarkable inability to grasp even the
most significant aspects of his person or ministry. In this regard, their portrayal in the Gospel
serves to expand upon Jesus interaction with Nathanael. There Jesus had affirmed
Nathanaels personal integrity, and substantially confirmed the genuineness of his confession,
yet had questioned the adequacy of his understanding. The Gospels account of the Twelve
offers us an explanation of this, for the important matter is clearly not that one fully
apprehend all that Jesus says and does, but that one sees him as decisive for ones religious
understanding. With such a mindset, one is prepared to put aside reservations and
uncertainties and commit to following Jesus. Either one trusts him and all he claims, or one
does not. Such trust comes not by way of inference but through the enlivening and
enlightening agency of the Holy Spirit. On that subject, Johns Gospel has much to say.
74
Chapter 7
Our final character is one of the Gospels most important. The Holy Spirit has been at work
throughout the Gospel, yet without claiming centre-stage. We have seen his effects as many
come to faith in Jesus, yet we have seen neither from whence he comes, nor to where he goes
(3:8). In Jesus final teaching to his disciples (13:1-17:26) we find it is after Jesus departure
that the work of the Holy Spirit (or Paraclete from the Greek ) will come to
prominence (16:17).
To identify the the Paraclete as the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, is not
uncontroversial but the arguments are well known and I will not retrace them here. Suffice to
say that I assume that identification in the following. This question of identity is, in any case,
not so very important given my interest lies in the epistemic role of the Paraclete/Holy Spirit
as presented in the Gospel. Over and above the explicit comments made on this point, I also
consider the implied epistemology of the Gospel. The Gospel is, after all, a post-resurrection
account of the earthly activities of Jesus of Nazareth and as such owes not a little to the
Spirits influence. We must consider what is involved in the suggestion that people can come
to faith, not as a consequence of meeting in person the historical Jesus of Nazareth, but as a
consequence of reading about him in the Gospel or in hearing the kerygma of the church
75
proclaimed. I will argue that the Holy Spirit plays a critical role as epistemic agent in this
process.
The Farewell Discourse (13:1-17:26) contains within it four references to the Paraclete
(Greek: : 14:15-17; 14:26; 15:26; 16:1-11) and one to the Holy Spirit (16:12-
15). There is some debate as to the meaning of the term and as to the identity
and nature of the Paraclete. A particular question is whether our understanding should be cast
in personal or impersonal terms. 155 Here I will take the Paraclete to be a person 156 identical
with the Holy Spirit (14:16-17).157 The term Paraclete I take to be a functional description
rather than a proper name158 such that the terms Paraclete and Holy Spirit stand in an
analogous relation to Saviour and Jesus. To speak of the Holy Spirit as Paraclete is to
speak of one particular aspect of the work which he comes into the world to perform. In what
follows the terms Spirit/Holy Spirit and Paraclete may be taken as synonymous.
i. John 14:15-17
The gift of the Paraclete is dependent upon love for Jesus and obedience to his
commands (15). Yet Jesus disciples often lacked spiritual insight and even abandoned Jesus
in his hour of need and it was to disciples like these that Jesus promised the Counsellor. 159
Thus, we cannot think that perfect love or perfect obedience is required.160 It is because Jesus
asks the Father (16) that the Paraclete will come, not because of the disciples own piety. That
155
For a very brief consideration of the question see Stephen S. Smalley, John: Evangelist and Interpreter, 2nd
ed., New Testament profiles (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 258.
156
Guthrie argues for the personhood of the Paraclete on the following grounds; (1) the functions of the
Paraclete are those of a personal agent; (2) Jesus description (another Paraclete - 14:16) shows him to be as
personal as Jesus himself; and (3) use of the masculine (rather than neuter) pronoun ekeinos in 16:13. He
concludes; By no stretch of the imagination can the teaching in these Paraclete sayings be made to refer to
impersonal force. Donald Guthrie, New Testament Theology (Leicester, Eng.: Inter-Varsity Press, 1981),
531.
157
Note that it is only if one makes the identification of the Paraclete with the Holy Spirit that 16:12-15 may be
included among the Paraclete sayings of the Farewell Discourse.
158
That Paraclete is a function and not a proper name may to some extent explain why references to the
Paraclete do not more strongly imply personhood of the Paraclete.
159
Kruse, John, 305.
160
Cf. the discussion of the Twelve in the previous chapter.
76
the Father would send the Paraclete at the Sons request, speaks to us of the intimacy of
relationship between the Father and the Son. By indwelling the disciples (17) they will share
this intimacy: On that day you will realise that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I
am in you. (20).
Jesus departure does not, therefore, end his relationship with his disciples. Indeed, it
actually serves to advance that relationship, for the coming of the Holy Spirit was not merely
to supply the absence of the Son but to complete His presence. 161 For this reason the
Paraclete is called another Paraclete (16) who, amongst other functions, will be the indwelling
presence of the Father and the Son in the lives of the disciples.
Throughout the Gospel it is seen that the knowledge of Jesus as the Christ is spiritual and
as such not open to humans in their natural state. They must, rather, be born again (3:3, 5-
8) if they are to grasp spiritual realities. The idea that the world will neither see nor know the
Paraclete (17) resonates with this idea and we may say that although believers will know the
Paraclete, we see that the basis of this knowledge will be no more tangible after Jesus
The second Paraclete saying consists, strictly speaking, only of verse twenty-six, but it is
helpful to note Judas question which introduces it. Those who do not love Jesus will not obey
him (14:24) and for this reason Jesus will not disclose himself to them (22cf. 2:24,25; 8:42-
47). There is nothing new in all of this (25) and Judas should thus have known the answer to
his own question. That he does not is further evidence that the disciples even now do not
grasp the point of Jesus teaching (cf. 14:5, 8; 16:17-18; 29-31). Yet their ignorance and
misunderstanding will be dispelled through the Paraclete teaching and reminding them of
what Jesus had said (26). Subsequent development of Christian tradition (including the
161
Gore, cited in William Barclay, The Promise of the Spirit (London: Epworth Press, 1960), 36.
77
Gospel itself) was a Paraclete-inspired presentation of Jesus life and teaching. 162 There is also
an important implication not to be overlooked: that the Spirit will come to the disciples shows
that whatever other shortcomings afflict the Twelve, their love for Jesus is sincere.
Although the world will never see or know the Paraclete (14:17), he will nevertheless testify
to Jesus (26. cf. 3:8). This implies an agency through whom this testimony can occur and
this agency is, of course, the testimony of the disciples who will proclaim what they have
heard and seen (cf. 1 Jn. 1:1-3). Thus, most authors conjoin the testimony of the Spirit and the
disciples:
The witness of the Spirit, conjoined with that of the disciples, is to bring to light the truth of
the revelation of Jesus in his word and deed, and death and resurrection; it takes place with
and through the witness of the disciples to Jesus in the Gospel. 163
Throughout my treatment in this thesis, I have argued that Jesus words and deeds lead to faith
only through the illuminating work of the Spirit. The same will apply to the testimony of the
disciples. Their testimony in the physical plane, including the written testimony of the Gospel
itself, obtains effect through being conjoined with the testimony of the Paraclete in the
spiritual plane.
Cloud and Townsend point out the irony that it is precisely by leaving us, that Jesus enables us
to become what God wants us to be. 164 This is a result of the teaching and reminding
ministry (14:26) of the indwelling Paraclete (14:17) who only comes after Jesus departs (7).
The subsequent comments (8-11) are amongst the most difficult of the entire Gospel. The
problem centres around how sin relates to belief in verse nine; how righteousness relates to
162
Guthrie, Theology, 533. See also Dorothy Ann Lee, In the Spirit of Truth: Worship and Prayer in the Gospel
of John and the Early Fathers, Vigiliae Christianae 58, no. 3 (2004): 277-97.
163
Beasley-Murray, John, 277.
164
Henry Cloud and John Sims Townsend, How People Grow: What the Bible Reveals About Personal Growth
(Sydney, NSW, Aust.: Strand, 2001), 94-95.
78
Christs departure in verse ten; and how judgement relates to the judgement of the evil one in
verse eleven. Carson offers a helpful summary of approaches and problems 165 but his valiant
attempt166 to bring consistency to the passage seems to ask too much of the original
language.
determine so precisely the meaning of these verses, for regardless of what convict the world
of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement (8) may entail, it is clearly the Paraclete who
brings about that conviction and this, in epistemological terms, is the pertinent point. Just as it
is the Paraclete who brings the disciples to understand Jesus teaching and makes their
testimony to him effective, so only the Paraclete can bring the world to a true appreciation of
spiritual issues such as sin, righteousness and judgement. In short, we can say that the
Paraclete, and he alone, can convict those who reject Jesus as to the error of their ways (9).
v. John 16:12-15
The term Paraclete is not specifically used in this passage, but there is clear continuation
from the previous Paraclete saying as well as parallels with the others (cf. particularly Spirit
of truth in 14:15-17). Commentators therefore include this passage among the Paraclete
sayings. Here, two aspects of the Paracletes ministry are restated: the Paracletes teaching
ministryencountered already in 14:26is seen as he guides the disciples into all truth
(13). Further, we see that the Paracletes role is not independent: he will not speak on his
own (13) but will take what is Christs and make it known to the disciples (14, 15). However,
Jesus affirms that all that belongs to the Father is mine (15. cf. 5:30; 7:17; 8:28; et passim)
and so we see the Spirit acting to create intimate connection between the Father, the Son and
the disciples (cf. comment on 14:15-17, above). In all of this it is important to note how the
Paracletes ministry is Christ-focused. He will bring glory to Christ by taking that which is
165
D.A. Carson, The Function of the Paraclete in John 16:7-11, Journal of Biblical Literature 98, no. 4
(1979): 549-58.
166
Beasley-Murray, John, 281.
79
Christs and making it known (14).
Another aspect of the Paracletes ministry is to reveal that which the disciples were not
initially able to bear (12). In part, this restates what we have already seen: that the disciples
could not properly understand Jesus teachings until the indwelling Paraclete provided the
requisite spiritual insight. But the Paracletes teaching will encompass more than just what
Jesus had already taught, for Jesus had much more to say (12) and this lack will be made
up by the Paraclete who will tell you what is yet to come (13). I have previously made
mention of the process of theological development which underlies the Gospel and we now
come to see that this is actually predicted by Jesus and therefore intrinsic to his teaching. It
goes without saying that this theological development begins with the life and teaching of
Jesus, so it has a clear historical ground, but at the same time it involves much more. Under
this rubric we may classify much which is found in the New Testament: the relationship of the
law of Moses to Christian faith, the relation between the Church and the pagan world, the
union of Jew and Gentile on terms of equality in Christs Church, the abrogation of the
Temple and its sacrificial system, and so on.167 While such themes are in no way contrary to
the teaching of Christ, and in part some are strongly foreshadowed within it, they must still be
regarded as Spirit-inspired developments not found explicitly in the teaching of Jesus. We can
imagine, then, that such are the sort of teachings the Paraclete delivered to the disciples.168
vi. Conclusion
Although the above discussion has been quite cursory, we can see that there are a number of
themes which describe the function of the Paraclete. He will: (1) abide with the disciples as
the personal representative of the Father and the Son (14:15-17); (2) teach them and remind
them of Jesus teaching (14:26); (3) testify to Jesus (15:26); (4) convict those who reject Jesus
167
F.B. Meyer, Gospel of John: The Life and Light of Men, Love to the Uttermost (London: Marshall, Morgan &
Scott, 1950), 285-86.
168
Pauls comment in Galatians comes to mind; the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did
not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ
(Galatians 1:11,12).
80
as to the error of their ways (15:26); and (5) glorify Christ by taking that which is Christs and
To the Paraclete-sayings of the Farewell Discourse, we may add the several other references
to the Holy Spirit which occur through the Gospel. Very early we find that Jesus is the one
upon whom the Spirit descends, showing him to be the one who will baptise with the Holy
Spirit (1:33). We may see this as a fulfilment of Isaiah 11:2 and thus further evidence of Jesus
Messianic status. Significantly the Gospel demonstrates this fulfilment when Jesus breathes
on the disciples and announces receive the Holy Spirit (20:22). Obviously this does not
concord with the chronology of the Synoptics and Acts, but once we accept that there was a
process of Spirit-inspired theological creativity behind the formation of the Gospel, then such
reordering of events in order to make a theological point (cf. the cleansing of the temple) need
not cause us undue difficulty. The point of including the giving of the Spirit should not be
taken as a theological, rather than historical, claim. With Jesus glorification the new age of
the Spirit has come and all that was said in the Last Discourse is now a living reality.
Certainly, it is correct to observe the chronological discrepancy, but we should also observe
that by the time Johns Gospel was written, this chronological issue would lack relevance for
the Johannine community. What would matter is the theological significance which arises in
light of the claim that Christ is the one who gives the Spirit.
Amongst the most important treatments of the Spirit, in epistemic terms, is that found in
Jesus engagement with Nicodemus (3:1-21). I have considered that passage in detail169 and all
that needs to be said here is that this passage clearly ties a correct grasp of Jesus Messianic
identity with the work of the Spirit. To know Jesus as Messiah is to be born again, and it is the
Spirit which brings about this new birth. Similar concepts underlie Jesus interaction with the
169
See ch.3, pp.31ff.
81
Woman of Samaria (4:1-42)170 where Jesus mention of living water clearly alludes to the
Holy Spirit, and his talk of worshipping God in spirit and truth (23-24) is a clear call to
transcend the categories of traditional Samaritan (and Jewish) worship (21). Later in the
Gospel, that the new life is the work of the Spirit is affirmed, so too the distinction between
the Spirit and the flesh (6:63). In the same place, Jesus claims that his words are spiritual, and
that none can accept them unless granted by the Father (65). Again we see that apprehension
37 On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If anyone
thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. 38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said,
out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. 39 But this He spoke concerning the Spirit,
whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because
Jesus was not yet glorified.
Very likely the symbolism here is tied to the rite of water-drawing which occurred at this
festival.171 Interestingly, the result is a dispute amongst the crowd with some asking if he
could be the prophet, others declaring him to be the Christ, and yet others denying that
possibility (40-43). For our present purposes, what matters is that we find that the coming of
the Holy Spirit is to succeed the glorification of Christ. Again, the emphasis lies upon the
dawning of a new age and with it new possibilities for our understanding of God. Whereas
before even Jesus closest followers often missed the significance of his words and deeds,
afterward the Spirit would lead them into all truth (16:13). Here, however, the emphasis is
upon the new life which the Spirit will confer. Elsewhere, the gift of new life is tied to ones
understanding of Jesus Messianic identity (20:31) and so we see that the work of the Spirit is
related to that cluster of concepts which pervades Johns Gospel: life, spirit, light, goodness,
and so on.172
From here on there is no further mention of the Spirit until we reach the Paraclete-sayings
170
See ch.4, pp.38ff.
171
Beasley-Murray, John, 113-14.
172
See p.88ff.
82
of the Farewell Discourse.
No analysis of the epistemology of Johns Gospel would be complete without comment upon
the implications of the fact that the author of the Gospel clearly felt that a written document of
such a form could lead people to identify Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God (20:31). Thus,
whereas hitherto I have focused upon the content of the Gospel, it is important also to reflect
The early Christian community did not invest very much effort in what we would regard
theology of the Gospel this does not entail anything quite so sophisticated as that which arose
in later centuries. Yet it is not at all improper to point to those later developments as offering a
well-developed articulation of the themes of the Gospel. Here I have particularly in mind the
more developed reflection on the Holy Spirit found in Basil of Caesareas de Spiritu Sancto
(On the Holy Spirit, c.375). Not surprisingly this treatise makes extensive reference to Johns
Gospel, but it is the way in which Basil advances a particularly Trinitarian knowledge of God
which interests me here. In seeking to argue that it is proper to include mention of the Holy
Spirit alongside mention of the Father and the Son in the doxology (1:3), Basil argues for the
I testify to every man who is confessing Christ and denying God, that Christ will profit him
nothing; to every man that calls upon God but rejects the Son, that his faith is vain; to every
man that sets aside the Spirit, that his faith in the Father and the Son will be useless, for he
cannot even hold it without the presence of the Spiritit is impossible to worship the Son,
save by the Holy Ghost; impossible to call upon the Father, save by the Spirit of adoption.
(ch. 11.27)
He later provides a concise summary of his view; the way of the knowledge of God lies from
One Spirit through the One Son to the One Father (ch. 18.47). Both the Son and the Spirit
83
sacramental manner.173 The term sacrament has been defined as an outward and visible
sign of an inward and spiritual grace174 and is properly used in reference to such rituals as
baptism and the Lords Supper. It is not strictly proper to use it in reference to our knowledge
of God. Yet drawing an analogy between our knowledge of God and the sacraments is useful
in as much as it helps clarify the idea that God, who is spiritual, becomes known to us through
non-spiritual means. Such an idea is intrinsic to the concept of the Means of Grace in
Protestant tradition. These are variously defined, but the general idea is that there are means
by which God is known. Scripture is regarded as central amongst these means, whilst
preaching, teaching, Christian fellowship, and the sacraments obtain prominent mention. 175
Yet I consider that there has been too great a tendency towards rigorous definition. For
instance, the second article of the Belgic Confession of 1618-19 affirms that we know God
through the created order, and Scripture.176 Such a concise definition implies exclusion of all
other means and so seems to me not only to give insufficient account for the variety of
Christian experience but also to risk a denial of the freedom of the Spirit who blows where
he wills (3:8). Yet without some objective touchstone by which religious experience can be
appraised, religion risks becoming merely a matter of subjective internal states 177 and we risk
loosing any basis upon which we might meaningfully talk of Christian religious experience.
Johns Gospel seems to me to speak to this situation in three respects. First, it demonstrates
173
Cf. Lee:
The Gospel of John uses a number of images to express its understanding of what it means to
believe in Jesus and to belong to the community of faith. These images, drawn from the material
world, are used as symbols or vehicles of the divine world. Indeed, faith cannot appear and
develop without such imagery, so foundational is it to the world of the fourth evangelist. (Dorothy
Ann Lee, The Gospel of John and the Five Senses, Journal of Biblical Literature 129, no. 1
(2010): 115).
174
R.S. Wallace, Sacrament, in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, ed. Walter A. Elwell, Baker Reference
Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1984), 965.
175
P.E. Hughes, Grace, Means of, in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, ed. Walter A. Elwell, Baker
Reference Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1984), 482-83.
176
Reformed Church in the United States, The Three Forms of Unity: Heidelberg Catechism, Belgic Confession
of Faith, Canons of Dort (South Holland, IL: The Evangelism Committee: Protestant Reformed Church,
1983), 19.
177
On this point see the discussion of Rudolf Otto (p.124ff.). I am here affirming his insight that whilst the non-
rational (numinous) element in religion is primary, the rational element is a necessary concomitant.
84
that affirmation of the Christological Confession can be made without a developed
church arise under the influence of the Spirit. The developed Christology of Johns Gospel is
itself to be regarded as the outcome of the Holy Spirits epistemic agency. Third, the Gospel
affirms the incarnate Logos as the authoritative frame of reference for our knowledge of God.
In this respect, the Protestant tradition is quite correct to affirm Scripture as a central means
The central importance of the Incarnation as a historical event speaks of the need to
maintain some witness to it. At first this was achieved by way of oral tradition, but eventually
a more permanent record was required and the various Gospels were the result. Just like the
historical event of the Incarnation, the subsequent written witness is a sacramental means
by which God can be made known. Just as those who encountered Jesus did not attain to a
knowledge of God by inference from his words or deeds, so those who read the Gospel do not
attain to a knowledge of God by inference from the written record. Rather, the Holy Spirit
enlightens the understanding such that one can see that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
the Fourth Gospel is not simply a report of others experience, but it provides the
possibility of a substitute experience for the reader. The narrative strategies of the Gospel
show, rather than merely tell, the reader what believing is, creating an experience for the
reader that is certainly not the same as being there but can be significant nonetheless. 179
In narrating significant aspects of Jesus life and teaching the Gospel seeks as far as is
recounting the circumstances through which others were able to identify Jesus as the Christ,
the Son of God, so the Gospel makes such an identification possible for its readers.
178
Cf. the earlier discussion of Nathanael, p.58ff.
179
OBrien, That You May Believe, 285. Cf. Lee who emphasises the importance of the Gospel narrative in
transforming the readers imagination (Five Senses, 125-26).
85
For this reason it should not be thought that the written Gospel is in any sense inferior to
an encounter with the incarnate Logos in the historical person of Jesus of Nazareth. There is,
of course, the well known comment of Papias who famously remarked that I did not imagine
that things out of books would help me as much as the utterances of a living and abiding
voice.180 It is apparent that a similar idea underlies OBrien (above) when she says that
reading the Gospel is certainly not the same as being there. Yet the entire point of the
concerns are unfounded, for it is to your advantage if I go away; for if I do not go away, the
Paraclete will not come to you. (16:7) Here we should not miss the obvious; it is Jesus
himself, sitting in the presence of his disciples, who says that the presence of the indwelling
The written Gospel provides a further advantage over encounter with the historical Jesus
in that it can draw attention to the significance of Jesus words and deeds in two significant
ways. At the literary level, the Johannine author was able to shape the narrative so as to
sharpen the significance of particular events. Thus we find such features as narrative
discontinuities and extended discourses employed in telling the story of Jesus of Nazareth.
There are many other literary devices at play in the Gospel all of which serve to convince the
reader that the Gospel provides a reliable insight into the person and words of Jesus of
The use of literary devices implies that the Gospel does not seek to provide dispassionate
reportage of Jesus words and deeds but, rather, to draw out the significance of the same from
reflection upon the significance of Jesus words and deeds. Here we see that the theological
reflection which pervades the Gospel may be taken as a positive feature of the work. It is
180
The saying is preserved by Eusebius in Historia Ecclesiastica III.39.3.
181
Culpepper, Anatomy, 48.
86
actually very helpful to have a theologically conditioned account written by one who already
grasps the significance of Jesus words and deeds which can draw out that significance for
others. Again, this is entirely consistent with the Paraclete sayings of the Farewell Discourse,
for it is the Holy Spirit, who comes after Jesus departure, who provides the disciples with a
Gospel provides us with insights into the person and teaching of Jesus which are available
The disciples did not understand Jesus or his words during his ministry (12:16; 13:7). Only
later did they understand. So any account, whether written or oral, from an apostle or a
prophet, which was not informed by the retrospective ideological point of view of this gospel
could not present Jesus or his words in their true light. 182
It is important to note that the Gospel is not to be regarded as expressing the voice of a lone
individual. The traditions it records are those of the community of faith and consist of
historical remembrances shaped by communal reflection under the influence of the Spirit.
Here we see two factors which serve to prevent a slide into relativismthe connection of the
tradition to historical events, and its preservation as the shared tradition of a community. This
reminds us that Christian tradition has always linked together the themes of ecclesiology and
pneumatology.183 Although Johns Gospel affirms the critical role of the Spirit in knowing, it
gives no justification whatever for ignoring the historical event of the Incarnation, nor any aid
Finally, we might note that the Gospel itself advances a form of holism. This is seen
particularly in Jesus appeal to the fourfold witness of the Baptist, his signs, the Father, and
the Scriptures (5:31-47). None of these can be regarded as dependent upon the others. Rather,
182
Ibid., 48-49.
183
This is shown in the Apostles Creed where I believe in the Holy Spirit is conjoined with I believe in one
holy catholic apostolic church. This is appropriate given that the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of
Pentecost constitutes the founding of the church. See Karl Barth, Credo, trans. J. Strathearn McNab (London:
Hodder & Stoughton, 1964), 139-42.; Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 1991), 12-20.
87
they are to be regarded as independent and show that Jesus claims for himself (31) are
supported by multiple, converging lines of evidence. This suggests that we need not try to
look for a single epistemological principle when inquiring after the Gospels defence of the
That Johns Gospel presents a dualistic outlook is well-known. Such dualism is demonstrated
truth/falsehood, belief/unbelief, and so on. Such dualism pervades the entire Gospel and it has
no small epistemological significance. At one time it was common to see Johannine dualism
as derived from Gnosticism184 but it is now seen as varying substantially from the Gnostic. 185
Most importantly, the struggle between good and evil, light and darkness is, in Johannine
thought, ethical rather than physical, and the victory of good, and of God, are regarded as
certain.186 This outlook is well expressed by the Gospels use of spatial language with heaven
being above the world (3:13, 31; 5:4 et passim) for such language expresses both separation
In accordance with the Gospels vertical dualism, the coming of the Logos into the world
may be expressed using the language of descent: he comes down from the heavenly realm to
make God (who is above) known in the world (below). This knowledge of God is
associated with concepts on one side of the dualism (light, life, love, truth, good, etc.) whilst
the world is associated with their antitheses. Indeed, the language of descent points to the fact
that the distinction between heaven and earth/world is itself part of the Johannine
dualism. The knowledge of heavenly things is thus outside human experience (3:31-32), so
the Logos, who has been with God since the beginning, comes down in human form and
184
Bultmann, Theology, 2:17, 21.
185
Here note my earlier remarks in the introduction (p.12). A helpful overview of issues is found in Keener,
John, 1:161-69.
186
Smalley, John, 35.
88
dwells amongst us, so revealing the glory of the Father (1:14). He brings with him the
knowledge of heavenly truths unknown to any who live on the earth (3:31) and what he has
seen and heard, that he testifies (32). To accept this testimony of the one who comes from
above is to share Gods view of things and so to certify that God is true (33). This
acceptance of the heavenly perspective is akin to the blind receiving sight (9:1-41, esp. v.41;
cf. 12:40) and is dramatically expressed in the language of the new birthto be born again
We see, then, that the Johannine vertical dualism has definite epistemic implications. By
being born from above one begins to see things from the heavenly side of the
heaven/earth dualism and becomes able to know those heavenly things which are otherwise
unknowable. On this matter two critical and related points must be made. First, the dualistic
outlook of the Gospel gives rise to a cluster of concepts which stand in indissoluble
relationship and may be used to say much the same thing in different ways. Belief in Jesus is
associated with knowing God, light, life, goodness, faithfulness, seeing, hearing, and so on.
To use any of these terms in connection with an individual is to assert that they have moved
from the worldly to the heavenly side of the Johannine dualism. They have been born again
from above. Here it is inconceivable that one might grasp the fact that Jesus is Messiah yet
not stand in believing relationship with him, and vice versa. To believe is also to have light,
life, love, goodness, and so onthe terms are interchangeable. Second, although the one who
believes in Jesus has transcended the earthly view of things, this does not necessarily entail a
full grasp of all aspects of the Johannine dualism. Indeed, it does not necessarily entail a full
grasp of the significance of Jesus person. This is intimated in the various confessions of
Jesus first followers where not only are various titles used to give voice to their respective
confessions, but the subsequent narrative illustrates how deficient were their initial
187
As mentioned on p.34. the Greek comprises a word-play in which is susceptible
to translation as either again or from above.
89
understandings.188 From these two observations a significant fact follows: although Johns
Gospel sets forward a clear vertical dualism, and although the concepts on one side (light,
love, life, good, belief, etc.) stand in clear contra-distinction to those on the other (darkness,
hate, death, evil, unbelief, etc.) it is not necessary that one have perfect understanding of all of
this in order to ascend to the heavenly side of things. What matters, substantially, is that one
recognise that Jesus is decisive for ones knowledge of God. That recognition, however, is
merely the starting-point for such knowledgethe experience of the Twelve, whose
knowledge of God deepens as they spend time following Jesus, is the paradigm example.
Finally, what has been said regarding the Johannine dualism illustrates why it is that a
grasp of Jesus Messianic identity is critical and explains the basic logic of the Gospels
Purpose Statement. As the knowledge that Jesus is the Christ is indissolubly connected with
the other concepts on the heavenly side of the Johannine dualism, having such knowledge
indicates that one has transcended darkness, death, hatred, and evilin short, all that is
associated with the earthly realm below. Taking Nicodemus as an example, we may say that
his failure to grasp the significance of Jesus person means that he fails to grasp a number of
other concepts of Christological significance; the veracity of Jesus testimony (3:10), the
heavenly origin of both Jesus (13,16,17) and his teaching (12), Jesus soteriological
life/death, belief/unbelief, and so on. Moreover, there is good reason to suspect that his failure
to grasp the significance of Jesus person is precisely the reason why he remains such an
enigmatic figure in the Gospel. To return to Bultmanns terminology, 189 in failing to properly
apprehend the person of the revealer, Nicodemus denies himself any access to the revelation.
His failure to grow in knowledge thus contrasts starkly with the experience of the Twelve.
We may conclude by once again affirming the critical role of the Holy Spirit. One takes
188
See p.69ff.
189
See p.19.
90
ones place on the heavenly side of the Johannine dualism by being born from above by the
Holy Spirit. Such rebirth corresponds to coming to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
God for it is by such belief that one has life (20:31). Again, we see that the cluster of
concepts which express the Johannine dualism may be used almost interchangeably and it
therefore follows that these concepts apply to an individual either all together or not at all.
Thus, if any of these can be attributed to the Spirit, they all may. By the Spirit one is born
again and believes that Jesus is the Christ, and by the Spirit one stands in positive relationship
to light, life, love, goodness, and so on. Further, the one who has life is said to know
God (17:3). As far as our knowledge of God is concerned, the Holy Spirit can be seen to be
e. Summary
The Gospel contains a wealth of explicit and implicit comment upon the critical epistemic
role of the Holy Spirit. The working of the Spirit is, like the wind, seen solely in its
effects (3:8) and the Gospel does not clarify the mechanisms by which faith arises. Yet it is
clear that the Spirit uses means to achieve his epistemic endssigns, teaching, the kerygma
of the church, the written Gospel itself, and so on. That the Gospel provides a post-
resurrection perspective is critical, for it means a Johannine epistemology is, in the end
reinterprets it from the standpoint of faith. Accordingly, the Gospel evidences an interplay
between historical awareness and Spirit inspired theological creativity. For Jesus first
followers, and for those who came after, the Spirit plays the crucial epistemic role.
Our treatment so far whilst not exhaustive is nevertheless quite adequate to draw out the
most significant issues in the Gospels account of the knowledge of God. We will thus now
make a summary of our findings so that we may have a convenient basis upon which to
91
Chapter 8
I shall seek to summarise the epistemology of Johns Gospel by regarding the Gospel as a
story of individuals who, in encounter with Jesus, are able to apprehend his messianic status
and respond by way of a personal commitment to follow him. At the human level, such
response involves willingness to hear Jesus message. At the spiritual level, it involves an
ability to see that Jesus is the Christ. There are thus three important factors: the willingness
of the individual to respond, the words and deeds of Jesus through which his message is
conveyed, and the mysterious working of the Spirit by which ones eyes are opened. Thus
we see the three significant epistemological themes of the Gospel: the notion of epistemic
virtue, the role of testimony in forming Christian belief, and the action of the Holy Spirit as
92
a. Epistemic Virtue
During our study of the religious leaders (Ch. 2), we looked at the way in which the Gospel
affirms that there is an ethical aspect to unbelief (p.27ff.). Even when a person has sufficient
evidence, and every social and religious advantage, belief is no certainty when self-interest is
involved. Even Nicodemus (Ch. 3), who shows great sympathy for Jesus, is sufficiently
concerned for his own social standing that it renders his final position in regard to Jesus quite
uncertain.
This contrasts starkly with those other characters we considered. The Woman of Samaria
(Ch. 4) is not only willing to go against her own religious tradition in order to embrace Jesus
indeed, in whom is no guile (1:47) who, along with the rest of the Twelve (Ch. 6), is
prepared to make a public profession of faith. This is not without risk. As we see in the story
of the man born blind (9:1-41), and in the case of the hapless Lazarus (11:1-45. Cf. 12:2), the
religious leaders are quite willing to turn their hostility toward Jesus upon his followers.
Belief, and with it knowledge (Sec. 7.d), therefore involves a willingness to follow Jesus
despite personal cost and this speaks to us of the ethical aspects of (un)belief. I have used the
term affective disability (p.23) to describe those who are unwilling, for whatever reason, to
inevitable given the basic premise: Jesus is the Incarnate Logos (1:1-14) who comes to make
known those things which only he has seen and heard (1:18, cf. 3:32). At one point Jesus
speaks of the several witnesses which testify to his identity (5:31-47) thus all the evidence
considered how the post-resurrection perspective of the Gospel maintains this emphasis, albeit
93
in altered form (Sec. 7.c). In the post-resurrection period we no longer witness Jesus signs
and words, but rely upon the written record of those who have (p.110n223). Both in its
explicit comments on the matter, and in the very fact of its existence, we see that the Gospel
The function of the Holy Spirit (or Paraclete) as an epistemic agent is a pervasive theme in the
Gospel. Not only are there repeated references to the work of the Spirit (Sec. 7.b) but the
Paraclete sayings of the Farewell Discourse provide a clear statement of the Spirits epistemic
role (Sec. 7.a). The Gospel gives no account of the mechanism by which the Spirit works, but
it is clear that such working is sacramental in that it involves working through means
(p.83). Much is explained by this simple fact: the God of Johns Gospel makes himself known
through the Incarnation, but the Incarnation alone does not guarantee that people will
comprehend the divine disclosure. So there are those who witness at first-hand Jesus signs
and teaching, but who nevertheless neither see nor hear what God seeks to say. Thus we
see that the signs and faith stand in an uncertain relationship in the Gospel (Sec. 2.d) due to a
cognitive disability akin to the physical disabilities of blindness or deafness (Sec. 2.e).
That the role of the Holy Spirit is fundamental, yet with no clear statement as to the
means by which the Spirit works, suggests why the basis upon which people decide to follow
Jesus is often opaque. In the case of the Woman of Samaria, Nathanael, and the Twelve, we
saw that their decisions are not logically explicable from the text. All these characters came to
believe through a process of individual encounter with Jesus, but in no instance do we see this
decision tied with the working of signs, nor with anything like logical argument. Ultimately, it
seems that they simply come to see that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, rather than infer
Most importantly in our day, however, is that the above may be extended to encompass
94
even the post-resurrection kerygma of the church (oral or written), including the Gospel itself.
Were Christian faith dependent upon first-hand encounter with Jesus, those in the post-
resurrection era would be at a decisive disadvantage, but the Gospel proclaims that Jesus
departure is epistemically advantageous precisely because it inaugurates the era of the Spirit
(16:7-15, cf. 20:29). This gives rise to a nexus between the historical and the theological, with
the Gospel affirming the importance of the historical event of the Incarnation whilst, at the
same time, offering a Spirit-inspired interpretation of that history from the post-resurrection
perspective. Even for contemporary readers, it is a question not of logical inference, but of
whether one can see the point of the Gospels account of Jesus of Nazareth. As with Jesus
contemporaries, this amounts to whether one is prepared to acknowledge ones own cognitive
d. Epistemological Holism
Finally, it is worth reiterating that none of the above are foundational to the others. To believe
in Jesus requires that one be epistemically virtuous (i.e. lack affective disability, p.23) and that
one encounter the kerygma in oral or written form and that one see by the Spirit that Jesus
is the Christ (i.e. lack cognitive disability, ibid). These are not reducible to one single
epistemic principle even if affective and cognitive disability are in some sense connected.
95
e. Summary
Although Johns Gospel has much to say about the knowledge of God, three themes just
discussed are, in my estimation, primary. What remains, then, is to ask whether this is in any
sense a credible account of knowledge, which question we can answer only by turning to
contemporary epistemology. Here we will see that the treatment of epistemic virtue and
testimony in the literature is such to suggest that the Johannine account has at least initial
plausibility with respects to these two themes. It is the thirdthe action of the Holy Spirit as
epistemic agentwhich we will find to be the most problematic although, as we shall see, it
96
Part Two
in Epistemology
Chapter 9
The foregoing discussion has uncovered a number of important themes in the Johannine
treatment of the knowledge of God. These cannot be collapsed into one single epistemological
principle and as such the Gospel presents a form of epistemological holism in which multiple
independent lines of thought converge to support the claim that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
God.190 Because we are not contemporaries of the historical Jesus, however, some of the
witnesses to Jesus, his signs and teaching in particular, are available to us only through the
testimony of the Gospel. Thus the question of testimony takes on renewed importance. Two
other major themes are the ethical aspects of belief, and the role of the Holy Spirit in
knowing. This latter is of such significance as to merit separate treatment in much greater
detail in the following chapters. Before I turn to a discussion of testimony and the ethical
aspects of belief, I wish to give some consideration to the fact that the Johannine notion of
In contemporary epistemology the terms belief and knowledge do not carry the deeply
relational connotations attached to them in Johns Gospel. In the Gospel, belief involves a
personal commitment to Jesus as the Christ and, by virtue of the Johannine dualism, it is so
190
See the discussion in the introduction, p.1ff.
98
intimately related to knowledge as to be inseparable. In the Johannine view, to know that
Jesus is the Christ is to believe in Jesus as the Christ and vice versa. Contemporary
define knowledge as Justified True Belief (JTB). 192 On this account a proposition p must
Belief: A person believes p simply by affirming it. It does not matter if p is true, nor
whether there are good grounds to believe p. It is only necessary that p be affirmed.
Justification: p has justification (and our belief that p is justified) when we have good
good reasons. The basic idea is that when asked why do you believe p? a person
Truth: A person cannot be said to know p unless p is, in fact, true. This is, essentially, a
is true, as this would conflate the truth and justification conditions. I must, according
to the justification condition, be able to justify my belief in p, but it does not follow
It is tempting to think that belief in a false claim could never be justified. But this would be to
wrongly conflate the justification and truth conditions. I can be justified in believing a false
claimas when I believe that I have cancer following an incorrect diagnosis by my doctor. I
can be unjustified in believing a true claimas when I take my medical advice from a
fortune-teller who correctly pronounces that I am in perfect health. Whether a belief is true,
191
See also the treatment of this theme in Bennema, Johannine Epistemology, 122-24.
192
Edmund L. Gettier, Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?, Analysis 23, no. 6 (1963): 121-23.; Stephen
Hetherington, Gettier Problems, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2005,
http://www.iep.utm.edu/g/gettier.htm.
99
and whether it is justified are thus two different issues. A belief must be both true and justified
if it is to meet the requirements for knowledge set down by the JTB account.
As an important aside, the above instances presume certain standards of justification and
so risk obscuring that questions as to what counts as justification are of major importance in
criteria. It seeks to argue that it can reasonably be argued that Johns Gospel justifies the
belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Should it be the case that this belief happens
to be true, then one who believes that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God on a basis of a
reading of the Gospel holds a justified true belief and, so, has knowledge according to the JTB
account of knowledge.
In order to examine this further, it helps to observe that it is the idea behind a proposition
rather than its wording which is of most significance. It does not matter if one affirms Jesus
original) as what matters is that one affirms the content rather than the form of the
proposition. This is so according to the tenets of both contemporary philosophy 193 and
Johannine thought.194
However, propositional belief (call this P-Belief) does not carry the deeply relational
connotations inherent in the Johannine understanding of belief (call this J-Belief). How
would we then relate J-Belief and P-Belief? The resolution here, I believe, arises from what
has been said earlier in regard to J-Belief involving ones taking the heavenly side of the
Johannine vertical dualism.195 On that view it is not possible to affirm that Jesus is the Christ
except from the standpoint of faith. Or, to put it another way, the Johannine understanding is
that the one who affirms that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God from a standpoint other
193
A proposition may be expressed by any two sentences, from the same or different languages, that are
synonymous, or correctly intertranslatable. Proposition in Simon Blackburn, ed., Oxford Dictionary of
Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 307.
194
Consider, for instance, the case of Nathanael p.58ff.
195
See p.88.
100
than that of faith has no idea what it is they are affirming. They may be said to be voicing the
proposition, but they most certainly do not affirm it. It follows, then, that although the concept
of P-Belief may be distinguished from the concept of J-Belief, when it comes to the particular
proposition Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God the one entails the other. We may, then, treat
the P-Belief Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God simply as an instance of P-Belief yet with
the understanding that it carries with it the implication of J-Belief. Possibly this might be
extended to cover all P-Beliefs which have necessary existential implications. For now,
however, I will take it that this is a particular consequence of the Johannine view of faith. On
that view to affirm that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God is to do so propositionally and
b. Testimony
In the introduction to this thesis196 it was stated that one of the key philosophical moves in the
Modern period was a rejection of notions of authority. One specific consequence of this was a
suspicion of anything which the individual could not prove or confirm for themselves and this
had inevitable impact upon the perceived value of testimony as a source of knowledge. Due to
this devaluing, there was little philosophical engagement with the theme until very recently.
The resurgence of interest can be dated to the publication of C.A.J. (Tony) Coady's landmark
study Testimony: A Philosophical Study (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992). since which time
Historically, Christian scripture did not fare well during the Modern period. In part this
was due to the general suspicion of authority. But there was a more specific reservation which
arose in respects of the Bibles portrayal of miracles. Indeed, David Humes famous argument
no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that
its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish. 197
196
See p.2ff.
197
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Antony Flew, Paul Carus Student Editions
101
Hume famously defines miracles as a violation of the laws of nature 198 and the above claim is
predicated upon that definition. Such a definition is, however, problematic and Humes
argument on this particular point is considerably, if not fatally, weakened by its rejection. For
our present purposes, however, the important point is that his argument is not simply an
argument about miracles, it is also an argument about testimony. 199 Humes claim in part two
of Of Miracles, that testimony to the occurrence of miracles can never serve to establish the
truth of a system of religion, 200 has particular application to Johns Gospel which depends
given the limited scope of this thesis I cannot hope to demonstrate that the testimony of the
accordingly, restrict myself to making what I consider are the three most significant points
and non-reductionist approaches.201 Reductionists in respect of testimony argue that one is not
justified in believing testimony unless one has good positive reasons for doing so. Non-
reductionists, by contrast, argue that one can be justified in believing testimony in the absence
of such reasons, provided that one has no defeaters: reasons which count against the
testimony and is contrasted with his contemporary, Thomas Reid, who is notable for a
tremendous emphasis upon the importance of our social context as knowers. A Humean and a
Reidian approach would vary precisely in whether one needs to justify accepting the
testimony of the Gospel, with Hume arguing yes and Reid noonly Reid would insist that
1 (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 2001), 149.
198
Ibid., 148.
199
Hume assaults the credibility of apostolic testimony from the very outset of his essay. Ibid., 141.
200
Ibid., 163.
201
Here I follow the treatment in Jennifer Lackey and Ernest Sosa, eds., The Epistemology of Testimony
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006), 4-6.
102
we should have no defeaters which might count against that testimony. One might think that
the one who accepts the testimony of the Gospel is overly nave and in breach of their
approaches to testimony and begs the standard non-reductionist counter-charge: are not those
who reject the testimony of the Gospel being overly sceptical and is it not, therefore, they who
are in breach of epistemic propriety? Why reject that testimony in the absence of good reasons
for doing so? And what might comprise good reasons in any case? Such questions are not
easily answered. We might think the impossibility of miracles is just one such good reason,
but it is interesting to note that Reid does not seem to share Humes opinion that miracles are
impossible, thus he would not seem to share the view that the presence of miraculous
elements renders the Gospel accounts questionable.202 I cannot hope to resolve this
tremendously complex issue here. What I can point out is that the Humean approach is not the
only option available, and so the Gospel, taken as an instance of written testimony, need not
automatically fall under the severe burden of proof which is demanded by reductionist
approaches to testimony.
knowledge. It is notable that Reid gave this considerable thought in developing his concept of
the social aspects of mind.203 The theme is picked up by commentators on testimony and
rightly so because testimony is very important in the formation of much that we regard as
reasonable belief and that our reliance upon it is extensive. 204 Ultimately, this extensive
dependence relies upon trust and here we see how the two basic approaches to testimony get
off the ground. Reductionists say that trust in others is often sufficiently misplaced for
103
necessarily argue against this, rather they point out that our reliance upon testimony is so
extensive that we do, in fact, start with a presumption of trust, such is our nature as social
beings.205 Here it is interesting to note that the renewed interest in testimony as a source of
community206 in contemporary thought. Even in the natural sciences, often portrayed as the
epitome of Modernist rationalism, the importance and irreducibility of community has been
observed.207 That Johns Gospel seeks to establish trust is therefore critical. We saw this in
Jesus interaction with individuals208 but it is, more importantly, intrinsic to the Gospel as
literature for the gospel makes use of virtually all of the devices available for heightening the
immediately obvious that the testimony of the Gospel ought to carry an undue burden of
suspicion.
It is helpful to make one brief final point on testimony in connection with the Gospel. It
was earlier pointed out that the Gospel implies a form of holism when Jesus speaks of the
fourfold testimony to his person (5:31-47). It is entirely consistent with this approach to
suggest that the testimony of the Gospel and the testimony of the Holy Spirit go hand in hand
to justify Christian belief. Like Jesus, we may speak of the convergence of multiple lines of
thought rejecting the Foundationalist assumption that one of these ought to take primacy over
the other. If we include other considerations, such as philosophical arguments for the
existence of God, we may say that Christian faith owes its justification not to just one
205
This is essentially Reids position: Coady, Social Operations.
206
Murphy, Theology, 201.
207
See particularly the treatment of Conviviality in Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-
Critical Philosophy (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 203-45.
208
See p.68.
209
Culpepper, Anatomy, 48.
210
Griffiths, How Epistemology Matters.
104
c. Virtue Epistemology
The emphasis Johns Gospel lays upon the ethical aspects of belief finds its counterpart in an
approach to knowledge known as Virtue Epistemology. This is not surprising given that this
approach of knowing was once the staple of Judeo-Christian as well as ancient Greek ways of
thinking.211 In this approach intellectual agents and communities are the primary source of
epistemic value and the primary focus of epistemic evaluation. 212 As with epistemology of
testimony, the field boasts an extensive literature to which I can hardly do justice here. I
therefore restrict myself to demonstrating that the emphasis that the Johannine account places
The early 20th century saw the rise of Logical Positivism which emphasised the idea of
verificationno claim could be taken as meaningful unless it was subject to verification. 213
claims, particularly metaphysical and religious claims, which could not be verified. For
several reasons this account fell into disfavour, but what is most remarkable is that it utterly
failed to understand the epistemic practices of working scientists, neglecting the role of both
the individual scientist and the community in which s/he worked. 214 With widespread
recognition that the sciences involve socially mediated knowledge, there is no great difficulty
in defending just that aspect of Christian theology. 215 The return of virtue approaches thus
corresponds to the demise of positivism and it is particularly appropriate to emphasise that the
burden to verify religious truth claims, including those of Johns Gospel, according to the
211
W. Jay Wood, Epistemology: Becoming Intellectually Virtuous, Contours of Christian Philosophy (Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 8.
212
John Greco and John Turri, Virtue Epistemology, in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N.
Zalta, 2009, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2010/entries/epistemology-virtue/.
213
Logical Positivism in Blackburn, Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, 223-24.; Nicholas G. Fotion, Logical
Positivism, in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ed. Ted Honderich, (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1995), 507-08.
214
A point argued with particular strength in Polanyi, Personal Knowledge.
215
See particularly Murphy, Theology.
105
Virtue epistemology focuses upon the intellectual (or doxastic) virtues, wisdom,
others.216 The opposing vices include folly, obtuseness, gullibility, dishonesty, willful
the pursuit of intellectual virtue, while presently unfashionable, was the dominant way of
casting epistemological concerns in the writings of Aristotle, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas
and other philosophers of the ancient and medieval tradition. Your intellectual life is
important, according to these thinkers, for the simple reason that your very character, the
kind of person you are and are becoming, is at stake. 218
There are here more connections to Johannine thought than may be immediately apparent. I
have discussed the fact that the religious leaders allow their vested self-interest to stand in the
way of an acceptance of Jesus as the Christ 219 and this speaks to the focus in virtue
epistemology upon individual agents. But what of the communal aspect of knowing? First, it
is as a community that the religious leaders evaluate Jesus messianic claims and they do so
according to the shared values of that community. It is therefore not surprising that their
decisive act against Jesus is as a community, in order to preserve the community (11:45-52).
Conversely, it is telling that those who come to faith in Jesus do so by re-evaluating the
traditions of their religious communities. Faith is thus to be valued not least because it
includes a willingness to reappraise ones current beliefs and to demonstrate the courage to
stand in opposition to ones community if necessary. Here the discovery of truth is more
easily explained in terms of epistemic virtues rather than in terms of the pursuit of adequate
justificatory criteria.
discipleship. The decision to follow Jesus does not entail complete awareness of his person or
mission, but rather a recognition that he is decisive for ones standing before God. Acceptance
of that fact alone is initially sufficient, but to live with Jesus in relationship demands that one
216
Wood, Epistemology, 16.
217
Ibid.
218
Ibid., 16-17.
219
See p.27.
106
is prepared to accept the epistemic consequences. It was precisely because they were not
prepared to do this that many turned away from Jesus after he spoke of eating his flesh and
drinking his blood (6:51-66). By contrast, Jesus most committed followers were prepared to
It is in the post-resurrection period that we see the above themes rise to prominence. In
which occurred in the early Christian community under the influence of the Holy Spirit. I
regard it as telling that although the early Christian movement took the Incarnation as
decisive, they did not regard their initial understanding of the Incarnation as adequate. Thus
they, as a community, proceeded to inquire after the significance of the historical event of the
Incarnation in light of the presence of the Holy Spirit in their midst. Thus the themes of
discipleship, ecclesiology, and pneumatology are brought together with that of virtue
epistemology, the early Christians regarding the pursuit of truth as arising out of their shared
commitment to Christ.
This leaves us with the greatest challenge to the Johannine account of knowledge, viz: is
it credible to assert that there is some super-natural (non-physical) agent who can actually
220
See pp.75ff and 83ff.
107
Chapter 10
That the role of the Holy Spirit is central to Johannine claims regarding knowledge and belief
are to make sense of the idea that the Holy Spirit acts as an epistemic agent by which we can
have knowledge of spiritual entities (God in particular). In this chapter I wish to explore this
issue against the framework of contemporary analytic epistemology. I begin by looking at the
not allow us to obtain a knowledge of God after the manner of the Johannine account. The
particular problem is that the idea of unmediated knowledge of God is excluded by definition.
I argue that the reason for this is a failure to acknowledge an ontological category of spirit. I
suggest a way in which an argument might be made for the existence of such a category, and
To a very great extent epistemology may be seen as an ongoing debate over the relative merits
of the different sources of knowledge. I shall follow Audis five-fold classification of the
108
Perception the senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell) by which we know the
sensible world.
When one considers these five sources of knowledge, paying close attention to how each is
understood within contemporary epistemology, one can see that they reflect the various
empiricism (emphasising sense perception) in particular. They are not, however, rendered
obsolete by more recent moves in epistemology. For instance, we may observe that recent
interest in the role of community in the process of knowing has not required that we posit any
new source of knowledge, although it has given rise to major reappraisal of the nature and
When one teases out the implications of the standard account of the sources of knowledge,
again paying close attention to how each is understood within contemporary epistemology,
one can see that certain difficulties arise for the claim that a knowledge of God is possible.
Consider;
We may say that, within the Modernist programme, empiricism, rationalism, and romanticism
emphasised perception, reason, and introspection respectively. Modernist thinkers saw the
validity of these respective concerns and so gave considerable thought as to how they should
be reconciled in a coherent theory of knowledge. For our present purposes what is most
Beauchamp, Foundations of Philosophy (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003), 3-4.
222
Audi, Epistemology, 130.
109
significant is that Modernity bequeathed to contemporary epistemology a quite clear
understanding of what could be known and, therefore, what could not. These three sources of
What is interesting is to note just how impotent these three sources of knowledge are
when it comes to formulating a Christian account of the knowledge of God. In very simple
terms we may say that God, as understood in traditional Christian thought, is neither an object
of sense perception, nor an abstract conceptual entity, nor an internal state or feeling
which three observations would seem to rule out the possibility of knowing God via sense
perception, rational reflection, or introspection respectively. But what if we press this and ask
whether this isnt too hasty a conclusion based on too superficial an analysis? I suggest that
even when we consider each of these three sources of knowledge in greater detail we do not
The standard view defines perception as that which is known through the senses of sight,
hearing, taste, touch, and smell. Most certainly the Biblical account suggests that, at various
times and in various places, God has chosen to make himself accessible by sense
perception,223 so Christian theology will perhaps not wish to rule out a priori the possibility
that God can make himself known via sense perception. What should be clear, however, is
that even on a Christian understanding such manifestations are the exception rather than the
rule. Further, such manifestations were entirely outside the experience of Modernist thinkers
and they therefore tended to be rather dismissive toward them in their epistemological
thinking. Biblical accounts which suggested that God had manifested himself in the past fell
to exactly the same logic which precluded acceptance of miracles. Here a lack of empirical
223
Of course, a central claim of Johns Gospel is that the Incarnation of the Logos in the person of Jesus of
Nazareth is precisely such an instance. Cf. Lee: the remarkably cohesive presence of images relating to the
five senses throughout the Johannine narrativesight, hearing, taste, touch, and smellis grounded in
Johns central theological motif, the incarnation (Five Senses, 115). Here I will only point out that the
reader of the Gospel does not enjoy such sense experience, but rather must rely on the Gospels testimony as
to the sense experience(s) of others. In terms of the sources of knowledge, then, we are here dealing with
testimony to sense experience rather than with sense experience per se. This is a quite different
epistemological issue.
110
evidence in ones own experience rendered suspect claims by others to have had such
experiences themselves.224 One could, of course, follow the Natural Theologians in drawing
an inference from sense perception to the thesis God exists but Christian faith has
Reason, too, proves quite unpromising as a source for the knowledge of God. It is
important that we here understand that the standard view takes reason to be the means by
which we come to know the relationship between concepts. If A is larger than B, and B is
larger than C, then A is larger than C, is a paradigm example. God, however, is most certainly
not a relationship between concepts. It is true that there is a venerable tradition of rational
argument in support of theistic belief, but whatever the virtues of this tradition, it
demonstrates at least three major limitations. First, if we turn to the Biblical narrative we find
that rational argument is not merely conspicuous by its absence, it seems to be the subject of
Ecclesiastes. The impotence of human reason to discern the ways of God is further
highlighted in the book of Job. From this, some question whether Christians ought to deal in
such trade. Second, even when we turn to the philosophical tradition, we find this question of
philosophical proof is a thorny one. Over against those who find the arguments for Gods
existence and character compelling, we may place such eminent philosophers as J.L.Mackie
who argues that none of the arguments for the existence of God work and so the continuing
hold [of theistic belief] on the minds of many reasonable people is surprising enough to count
however, the complexity of such proofs surely reduces their general usefulness:
190. The metaphysical proofs for the existence of God are so remote from human reasoning
and so involved that they make little impact, and, even if they did help some people, it
would only be for the moment during which they watched the demonstration, because an
224
Humes argument against miracles, for instance, depended upon the non-occurrence of miracles in ones own
experience (Hume, Human Understanding, 143-49).
225
J.L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism: Arguments for and Against the Existence of God (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1982), 12.
111
hour later they would be afraid they had made a mistake. 226
Finally, I reiterate the previous point regarding propositional beliefs not carrying any
relational connotations. Rational argument may bring us to affirm the existence of a first
mover, or a ground of being, or even that Jesus worked miracles, but something more is
needed to bring us to Christian faith. We can again invoke Pascal who famously wrote of
[the] God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacobnot of the philosophers and scholars.
The limits of reason as a way of knowing God have been continually affirmed by Christian
thinkers and the consensus is that whilst reason is a helpful adjunct to Christian faith, that
faith has been regarded as something quite different from proving, and subsequently
Pietism and continues to have influence up until the present time. 229 According to the standard
account, however, feeling or introspection provides knowledge only of ones own internal
states, not of any external reality. Otto critiqued Schleiermacher on this very point, arguing
that the feeling of absolute dependence is a form of self-consciousness which leads to the fact
of God only by way of inference.230 This being the case there could be no necessary
connection between religious experience and the formulations of Liberal Theology. As society
moved away from its religious roots in the 20th century, then, the programme of Liberal
226
Blaise Pascal, Pensees, trans. A.J. Krailsheimer, Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin Books,
1966), 86.
227
I here leave open the question of whether rational arguments for Gods existence fail precisely because
people wish to evade the existential consequences. I already noted this possibility in the discussion on P-
Belief and J-Belief. Johns Gospel makes a similar point when it suggest that one reason people do not come
to the light is because their deeds are evil (3:19-21). See the discussion on p.27.
228
Anthony Quinton, Romanticism, philosophical, in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ed. Ted
Honderich (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 778.
229
Eugene H. Peterson, Subversive Spirituality, ed. Jim Lyster, John Sharon, and Peter Santucci (Grand Rapids,
MI: Eerdmans, 1997), 3-4.
230
Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and Its
Relation to the Rational, trans. John W. Harvey, Revised with additions. (London: Oxford University Press,
1936), 1. I discuss this further in the next chapter. See p.126.
112
Theology began to falter231 and we have seen a wholesale abandonment of Christian faith by
the very cultured despisers to whom Schleiermacher had hoped to commend it.
So far the standard view of knowledge is proving a most unpromising basis for a
Christian knowledge of God. We are yet to reflect upon the remaining two sources of
knowledge offered us by the standard view, memory and testimony. We shall see that they
In respect of a Christian knowledge of God, perhaps the most significant thing we can say
about memory and testimony is that they are not generative sources of knowledge. That is to
say, whatever knowledge one acquires via memory or testimony must have its ultimate source
elsewhere.
This is not to imply reductionismthe thesis that one is not justified in accepting
testimony or memory unless one has supporting evidence from other sources (in which case
the thesis that one is justified in accepting testimony or memory only if one has some
argument which supports their reliability (that is, if one has an internal perspective on the
It is, rather, simply to note that I cannot remember (say) the skys being blue unless I
have at some past time perceived the sky as blue. Similarly, I cannot bear testimony to (say)
my being in love unless by introspection I had come to know this to be the case. What follows
is a very simple conclusion: unless we can obtain a knowledge of God by some other means,
there is no role for memory or testimony to play in the transmission of a knowledge of God. I
have, of course, just argued that the standard view does not allow a knowledge of God to arise
via perception, reason, or introspection. Neither memory nor testimony, therefore, have any
role to play in a Christian knowledge of God as long as we accept the sources of knowledge
231
Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine, 129.
113
as put forward in the standard view.
If this situation were not dire enough, we ought to return to the earlier observation that
the Enlightenment project was especially hostile to any notion of authority. 232 And as appeal to
authority has always played an important part in Christian thought, it is inevitable that
the Modernist period. We may say that here Protestant thought was, in certain respects, hoist
on its own petard. After all, in rejecting the authority of the Papacy and Councils, Luther was
effectively stating that he would not simply accept their say-so on matters of religious faith
and practice. Yet the same argument could easily be applied to Luthers alternate authority, the
Bible. The fundamental basis of Luthers challenge was, after all, that the Bible is a more
venerable form of say-so than any Papal or Conciliar decree. All that was necessary was to
turn the argument back upon itselfto point out that the testimony of Scripture may be just as
unreliable as the Papal and Conciliar testimony that Luther had decried.
distilled into a simple rule, viz; the fundamental nature of the object under examination
determines how that object may be known. For instance, the fundamental nature of abstract
concepts is such that they are known through rational reflection. By contrast, the fundamental
nature of physical objects is such that they are known through sense perception. Similarly,
internal states are such that they are known through introspection, past events through
memory, and the knowledge had by others through testimony. Thus, Blackburn:
We believe propositions, and when an issue arises, it is some proposition and its truth and
falsity upon which our attention turns. If the issue is an historical one, then our attention will
be turned to the historical period and the sources that help to establish what occurred. If it is
a scientific one, our attention will be turned to whatever experiments or theories are most
likely to establish a verdict. The issue determines its own epistemology. 233
232
See p.2.
233
Simon Blackburn, Truth: A Guide for the Perplexed, The Gifford Lectures 2004 (London: Penguin Books,
2005), 9.
114
From this we may see the need for a suitably broad range of sources of knowledge if we are to
One author who has developed this point more fully is theologian Alister McGrath. 234 In
his Scientific Theology trilogy, McGrath draws upon the work of philosopher Roy Baskar in
is to affirm the point just made, that the fundamental nature of the object (its ontology) under
a way of describing the process of knowing that acknowledges the reality of the thing
known, as something other than the knower (hence realism), while also fully
acknowledging that the only access we have to this reality lies along the spiralling path of
appropriate dialogue or conversation between the knower and the thing known (hence
critical). This path leads to critical reflection on the products of our enquiry into reality,
so that our assertions about reality acknowledge their own provisionality. Knowledge, in
other words, although in principle concerning realities independent of the knower, is never
itself independent of the knower.235
Critical realism seeks to steer a middle course between nave realismwhich denies that our
which asserts that our knowledge of reality (if, indeed, there be such) is entirely
In McGraths view the advantage of this approach is that it [makes] considerable sense,
not least on account of its obvious resonance with the actual working assumptions of the
natural sciences.236 Such a consideration is, I think, critical given that the natural sciences
234
McGrath, Reality, 209-26.; Alister E. McGrath, The Science of God: An Introduction to Scientific Theology
(London: T. & T. Clark, 2004), 139-52.
235
N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, Christian Origins and the Question of God Vol. 1
(London: T. & T. Clark, 2004), 35. Cited in McGrath, Science of God, 142.. Some critical remarks regarding
critical realism can be found in Murphy, Theology, 197-98. and Heikki Patomki and Colin Wight, After
Postpositivism? The Promises of Critical Realism, International Studies Quarterly 44, no. 2 (June 2000):
213-237.
236
McGrath, Science of God, 141. Foremost in McGraths thinking here is the basic principle that perception
gives us access to things and experimental activity access to structures which exist independently of us (Roy
Bhaskar). As a significant aside, Christian theology has far more to do with the ideas of perception and
experiment than is immediately apparent. I give the former significant consideration in this thesis (see
particularly the discussion of Alstons views on the matter on pp.130ff). As respects the latter, we may say
that the emphasis upon experience as a source for theological reflection brings us close to something like
experiment: see the discussion in Alister E. McGrath, The Foundations of Dialogue in Science and
Religion (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1998), 87-88. Note also Murphy: It is possible to see the proliferation of
115
have proven such a hugely important chapter in the growth of human knowledge 237 and that
most scientists seem to be of the view that their theories are constrained by, and reflect a
knowledge of, physical reality. This means that those who suggest the utter collapse of the
Modernist project are perhaps missing the critically important point that, in respect of the
natural sciences at least, there is strong reason to think that aspects of the Modernist project
are extraordinarily robust. McGrath does not ignore the weaknesses of Modernism. He speaks
writing that the belief that foundationalism is philosophically indefensible is now so widely
accepted that its demise is the closest thing to a philosophical consensus there has been for
The idea that ontology determines epistemology does not go without criticism. In direct
Besides its anthropomorphism (attributing agency to the thing humans attempt to know),
how does McGrath know first the ontology and then the appropriate epistemology? Knowing
the ontology requires either an assumption or an epistemology. This applies to all fields of
knowledge.242
Here I believe that Sharpe creates quite unnecessary difficulties. The charge of
denominations and sects within Christianity as a vast array of experiments in Christian life and belief
(emphasis in original), Murphy, Theology, 196. Returning to McGrath: As the church wrestled with the
question of the identity and significance of Jesus of Nazareth, it realized that it had to experiment with a
variety of models of understanding Jesus. (emphasis added) Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology: An
Introduction, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 265.
237
Whilst I consider this claim to be well justified, it does not go unchallenged. A helpful overview is found in
Larry Laudan, Explaining the Success of Science: Beyond Epistemic Realism and Relativism, in Science
and Reality: Recent Work in the Philosophy of Science: Essays in Honor of Ernan McMullin, ed. James T.
Cushing, C.F. Delaney, and Gary M. Gutting (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), 83-
105.
238
McGrath, Reality, 56.
239
Ibid.
240
Ibid., 33.
241
Ibid., 33-35.
242
Kevin J. Sharpe, Science of God: Truth in the Age of Science (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield
Publishers, 2006), 230.
116
relationship between ontology and epistemology in favour of a semantic quibble over the
choice of words in the maxim which McGrath adopts by way of summary. More substantially,
Sharpes major objection seems to understand that McGrath is arguing for the chronological
priority of ontology rather than for its logical priority. Yet McGrath does not argue that we
must first know the ontology before knowing which epistemology to deploy. His claim, rather,
is that we must deploy an epistemology appropriate to the nature of the object we seek to
know: should we fail to do so, we cannot possibly come to a knowledge of the object in
question. Sharpe has not done enough to overturn the substantial point of the maxim
Yet, even if Sharpes objection to McGraths substantial point fails, I do consider it is correct
indeed could one know the ontology unless one already had an epistemology at ones
disposal? Here we must acknowledge the very important point that there is a certain
appropriate to it. On the other hand, Sharpe is correct to suggest that without an appropriate
epistemology we cannot know anything about the object in question. This apparent
conundrum is resolved by the adoption of an approach in which theses about the relationship
between knowledge and its object are formulated, critiqued, and progressively refined. It is
This is seen, first, in the ongoing dialectic between the notions of rationalism and
empiricism. Here we see that attempts to assert that all knowledge ultimately derives either
from reason alone or from sense perception alone are all too easily undermined by the simple
117
which, on the one hand, we have no wish to reject as an instance of knowledge, but which, on
the other hand, can by no means be justified as knowledge under the schema in question. We
may find a paradigm instance of such a method in progress when we turn to Kants response
to Hume in the Critique of Pure Reason. Crudely put, Hume had began with empiricism
Finding such scepticism unacceptable, Kant inverted this to ask: given such instances of
the conditions of knowledge. Such method involves positing arguments of the following form:
Such transcendental arguments are not without their difficulties, and this has lead Stroud to
propose the deployment of modest transcendental arguments. 244 Here the goal is not to
An example of this very thing is found in Johns Gospel when Jesus opponents try to dismiss
his teaching as that of one who has a demon and is mad (10:20). Against this, his supporters
appeal to his miracles: can a demon open the eyes of the blind? (21). Here a proposition
(Jesus has a demon and is mad) is shown unintelligible on the basis of an experience (Jesus
243
Quassim Cassam, Transcendental Arguments, in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ed. Ted Honderich,
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 878.
244
For a helpful overview of Transcendental Arguments and objections to them see Adrian Bardon,
Transcendental Arguments, in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2006,
http://www.iep.utm.edu/t/trans-ar.htm.
118
c. Summary
What is most critical in the above discussion is that there is precedent in philosophy for taking
an experience as given and moving from there to construct an ontology and an epistemology
which would account for it. Such a process has not been in the least arbitrary, but has involved
propose, then, that Christian religious experience might be approached in the same manner. If
there is experience of the Holy Spirit, it is not unreasonable to take such an experience as a
given, moving from there to construct an ontology and an epistemology to give an account of
that experience.
The inclusion of an ontological category of spirit to which humans have some sort of
direct (unmediated) access would enable us to affirm the idea, which the first section of the
thesis found to be pervasive in Johns Gospel, that there exists a spiritual realm which humans
can sense after analogy to sense perception. A category of spirit could be incorporated
within the account of the sources of knowledge in analytical epistemology without doing any
The next chapter will demonstrate that what is now being proposed is not at all fanciful
and that, in fact, most of the requisite argument has already been put forward in the literature.
All that need be done is to appropriate it in the service of a Johannine account of knowledge.
119
Chapter 11
In this section of the thesis I wish to consider five 20 th century thinkers who are representative
of Protestant engagement with the non-rational aspects of belief. The goal is to support the
contention that there are good arguments to affirm the existence of a spiritual realm with its
own ontology and corresponding epistemology. The thinkers concerned span the 20 th century
from beginning to end. A chief goal is to illustrate the changing attitudes to religious
experience over this period. The majority view at the turn of the 20 th century was that
progressed, however, we find quite influential thinkers prepared to argue that religious
physical reality.
William James has been ranked alongside Jonathan Edwards and Ralph Waldo Emerson as
one of Americas three most original religious thinkers245 thanks in no small part to his
remarkable work The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). The Varieties is the outcome
245
Robert C. Fuller, Review of James, Varieties of Religious Experience, Church History 55, no. 2 (June
1986): 247.
120
religions] greatest classic but also as one of the most important writings on religion in the
Those aspects of Jamess thought which I wish to consider here can all be understood
against a shifting cultural landscape in which the natural sciences were coming to displace
religion at the centre of things. Part of this shift saw an increasing importance placed on
belief was no exception. This gave rise to what James called medical materialism in which
religious experiences were ascribed to organic rather than spiritual causesthe suggestion
that St. Pauls Damascus Road experience (Acts 9:1-9) was actually an epileptic fit rather than
a divine apparition is a classic example of the view. This perspective displaced the view that
explanations. Against such a background three aspects of Jamess life and writings are of
particular significance.
is to say without value judgement, James proved a powerful influence against what had been a
largely uncritical dismissal of religion on scientific grounds. In large part it was the totality of
Jamess impact which is significant herehis treatment of religious experience with both
sensitivity and seriousness set the standard for all subsequent investigations and meant that
phenomenon in its own right. Of his arguments against medical materialism three are of
particular interest here: (1) that the origin of a belief is no measure of either its truth or its
value; (2) that if all beliefs (or dis-beliefs) can be ascribed to organic causes it is quite
illogical and arbitrary to single out religious belief for particular criticism on such a
246
David M. Wulff, Psychology of Religion: Classic and Contemporary, 2nd ed. (New York: John Wiley &
Sons, 1997), 473.
121
ground;247 and (3) it may well be the case that psychological abnormality serves to facilitate
religious experience (compare here the way in which recent findings in neuroscience suggest
creativity and schizophrenia have shared neurological origins 248). Actually, James had focused
experience and whilst this has been a constant source of criticism249 it nevertheless leads to the
irony that it was precisely in examining extreme instances of religious experience that James
normalised those religious experiences which are part-and-parcel of the lives of the great
majority of ordinary folk. In so doing he helped to foster the idea that experience of, and
belief in, some sort of transcendent entity is thoroughly normal. Rather than something to be
arbitrarily dismissed, the human religious impulse is worthy of sensitive and serious appraisal.
Two further insights from Jamess work contribute significantly to the present study. First
is the idea that religious experience cannot be assessed on the same sort of grounds as beliefs
these simply are not open to us. So James followed Jonathan Edwards in making appeal to the
By their fruits ye shall know them, not by their roots. Jonathan Edwardss Treatise on
Religious Affections is an elaborate working out of this thesis. The roots of a mans virtue are
inaccessible to us. No appearances whatever are infallible proofs of grace. Our practice is the
only sure evidence, even to ourselves, that we are genuinely Christians. 250
Here James is advocating the principles of his Pragmatist philosophy. Of this school of
thought I have little to say here and I wish neither to defend nor critique Jamess own
resolution to the problem of justifying religious belief. What is of importance is simply this:
that inherent in Jamess argument is the claim that religious beliefs have a different criterion
122
The second important insight from James arises out of his famous essay The Will to
Believe (1896). Here James concisely states the thesis he wishes to defend;
Our passional nature not only lawfully may, but must, decide an option between
propositions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on
intellectual grounds; for to say, under such circumstances, Do not decide, but leave the
question open, is itself a passional decision,just like deciding yes or no,and is attended
with the same risk of losing the truth.251
The significance of this requires that we go back to Jamess Principles of Psychology (1890)
where he had suggested the following relationship between the bare thought of an object and
often we first suppose and then believe; first play with a notion, frame the hypothesis, and
then affirm the existence, of an object of thought. And we are quite conscious of the
succession of the two mental acts. But these cases are none of them primitive cases. They
only ever occur in minds long schooled to doubt by the contradictions of experience. The
primitive impulse is to affirm immediately the reality of all that is conceived. 253 (emphasis in
original)
The third important point derives from Jamess own religious anomie which arose through
lack of the sort of religious experience he so highly valued. This might be taken as an
example of how failure to embrace faith as a centred act of the entire person can be
disastrous.254 James considered experience against philosophy as being the real backbone
of the worlds religious life255 and his letters seem to suggest that he had relied solely upon
251
William James, Will to Believe, in The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (New
York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1897), 11.
252
William James, The Principles of Psychology, vol. 2 (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1890), 218.
253
Ibid., 2:219.
254
It may be that James fell victim to the ongoing philosophical attacks against orthodox Christian belief. It was
not that he had any in principle objection to approaching religion in a holistic manner, rather this seems not to
have been (in his own phrase) a live option:
We are thinking beings, and we cannot exclude the intellect from participating in any of our
functions. Even in soliloquizing with ourselves, we construe our feelings intellectually. Both our
personal ideals and our religious and mystical experiences must be interpreted congruously with
the kind of scenery which our thinking mind inhabits. The philosophic climate of our time
inevitably forces its own clothing on us. Moreover, we must exchange our feelings with one
another, and in doing so we have to speak, and to use general and abstract verbal formulas.
Conceptions and constructions are thus a necessary part of our religion; and as moderator amid the
clash of hypotheses, and mediator among the criticisms of one mans constructions by another,
philosophy will always have much to do. It would be strange if I disputed this, when these very
lectures which I am giving are (as you will see more clearly from now onwards) a laborious
attempt to extract from the privacies of religious experience some general facts which can be
defined in formulas upon which everybody may agree. (James, Varieties, 423)
255
Letter to James Henry Leuba (Cambridge, April 17, 1904) in William James, The Letters of William James,
ed. Henry James, vol. 2, Limited ed. (Boston, MA: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1920), 212.
123
spiritual experience as the ground of his own faith. He was, in addition, very dismissive of
dogmatic theology and institutional religion. When the requisite spiritual experience failed, it
was inevitable that Jamess had no other resources upon which to rely.
Best known for his study of the non-rational aspects of religious belief in The Idea of the
Holy (1917), Rudolf Otto had also published two other significant, although lesser known,
works; Naturalism and Religion (1904) and The Philosophy of Religion: Based on Kant and
Fries (1909). The former was essentially a response to attempts to reduce religious experience
to evolutionary explanation, the later a response to Kants notion that religion could be
grounded only in the moral a priori. Passing references in these works indicate that Otto was
also familiar with the work of William James. This is hardly surprising given Ottos interests
and Jamess influence but although Otto shared Jamess interest in the experiential aspects of
religious belief, their backgrounds and methodologies were otherwise quite different. A career
theologian, Otto had much greater regard for confessional Christianity and rational
theological reflection than did James. It is perhaps significant that his occasional references to
James are somewhat negative in nature. Given that Otto is so often held up as the champion of
the non-rational it would seem fitting to give some consideration to his advocacy of the
rational.
One need go no further than the foreword of The Idea of the Holy in order to grasp the
importance Otto gave to the rational aspect of religious belief. He derided those too lazy to
think or too ready to evade the arduous duty of clarifying their ideas and grounding their
convictions on a basis of coherent thought.256 His Naturalism and Religion and Philosophy of
Religion, he pointed out, contained the results of many years of study upon the rational
aspect of that supreme Reality we call God. Such careful work was a necessary prerequisite
as no one ought to concern himself with the Numen ineffabile who has not already devoted
256
Otto, Idea of the Holy, vii.
124
assiduous and serious study to the Ratio aeterna.257 The Idea of the Holy, then, was in no
way a departure from Ottos earlier program of rational theological reflection but was integral
to it. Otto could both assert the inadequacy of rational reflection whilst affirming that the
unique clarity and abundance of rational concepts within Christianity is though not the sole
or even the chief, yet a very real sign of its superiority over religions of other forms and at
other levels. This must be asserted at the outset and with the most positive emphasis. 258
Whereas James had downplayed the value of the rational, Otto saw the rational and the non-
rational, the cognitive and the experiential, as coexisting in a critical symbiosis. We see here
shades of Tillichs notion of faith as an act of the total personality rather than a movement of
The entire point of The Idea of the Holy, however, was to deal at length with the non-
rational aspects of religious experience. Otto was very clear that it is a wrong and one-sided
interpretation to hold that the essence of deity can be given completely and exhaustively in
rational attributions.260 Indeed, so far are these rational attributes from exhausting the
idea of deity, that they in fact imply a non-rational or supra-rational Subject of which they are
predicates.261 Yet although this Subject eludes the conceptual way of understanding, it must
be in some way or other within our grasp, else absolutely nothing could be asserted of it. 262
To refer to this non-rational Subject Otto coined the term the Numinous: a special term to
stand for the holy minus its moral factor or moment, andminus its rational aspect
altogether.263 In all religions this Numinous lives as the real innermost core, and without it
no religion would be worthy of the name. 264 Otto has thus equipped himself with a linguistic
tool which will allow him to distinguish, without unwanted connotations, the non-rational or
257
Ibid.
258
Ibid., 1.
259
Tillich, Dynamics of Faith, 4-5.
260
Otto, Idea of the Holy, 2.
261
Ibid.
262
Ibid.
263
Ibid., 6.
264
Ibid.
125
supra-rational Subject of religion (the Numinous) from the valuable rational (or moral)
It is important to note that Otto intends the Numinous to be understood as existing outside
the self.265 Accordingly the numinous is thus felt as objective and outside the self. 266 Here
Otto owes a debt to the philosophy of Jakob Fries (1773-1843) and his concept of Ahnung
parallel with Schleiermachers feeling of [absolute] dependence yet Otto finds this latter
inadequate in more than one respect. First, he finds Schleiermacher mistaken in making the
distinction merely that between absolute and relative dependence, and therefore a
difference of degree and not of intrinsic quality.268 That is, the response to the numinous is
far more than, and something other than, merely a feeling of dependence. Otto thus
proposes a new phrase: creature consciousness which is the emotion of a creature, abased
and overwhelmed by its own nothingness in contrast to that which is supreme above all
Taking these together we can see why Otto distinguished Ahnung from the feeling of
irreducible to any other[an] absolutely and elementary datum. 271 Much of Ottos argument
in The Philosophy of Religion, Based on Kant and Fries lurks behind this statement for he
surely has in mind the argument he put therein: that the human religious sentiment is not, as
265
Ibid., 10-11.
266
Ibid., 11.
267
For an account of Ottos appropriation of Fries see David Bastow, Otto and Numinous Experience,
Religious Studies 12, no. 2 (1976): 159-76.
268
Otto, Idea of the Holy, 9.
269
Ibid., 10.
270
Ibid.
271
Ibid., 7. Emphasis in original.
126
Kant believed, grounded in the moral a priori but is rather an a priori in its own right. Thus,
if there be any single domain of human experience that presents us with something
unmistakably specific and unique, peculiar to itself, assuredly it is that of the religious life. 272
another feeling-element, which casts it like a shadow, but which in itself indubitably has
We can thus see how Otto brings together the rational and non-rational elements in
religion. The objective reality, the numinous, is apprehended through Ahnunga direct
intuition irreducible to any other categoryso giving rise to creature consciousness all of
which may be expressed to a greater or lesser extent, but never exhaustively, in rational
categories. In order to justify religious belief which arises through Ahnung, one need not go
any further than an appeal to Ahnung itself. Religious belief arises from, and is justified by,
The next representative work on which I wish to draw is The Sense of the Presence of
God (1962) by Scottish theologian John Baillie. Published posthumously, this book was a
compilation of the notes that Baillie had prepared for what would have been the Gifford
Lectures of 1961-62 and covered much of the same ground as Baillies earlier work Our
Knowledge of God (1939). Ballie was, like Otto, a career theologian. His prodigious output
reflects a range of interests in dogmatic and philosophical theology yet it is clear that he
harboured an ongoing interest in the experiential basis and interpersonal nature of religious
belief.274 I think it important that Baillie also stands in some opposition to James in that he
stood squarely within the orthodox Christian tradition. Indeed, his Diary of Private
272
Ibid., 4.
273
Ibid., 10. Cf. Moltmann: It is not the experiences which are important, but the one who has been
experienced in them (Crucified God, xviii).
274
Adam Hood, Baillie, Oman, and Macmurray: Experience and Religious Belief, Ashgate New Critical
Thinking in Religion, Theology, and Biblical Studies (Aldershot, Eng.: Ashgate, 2003), 4.
127
Prayer (1936), widely regarded as a devotional classic, reveals him as a man of deep
Often it is Baillies own religious experience that provides the grist for his analytical mill
and just as Jamess Varieties reflects much that was peculiar in Jamess own experience, so
too the impact of Baillies religious experience is evident in Sense. Elsewhere he states that
My earliest memories have a definitely religious atmosphere. They are already heavy with
the numinous.275 What then becomes interesting is the relationship Baillie draws between
the awareness of the numinous and the message of the Christian Gospel;
he is adamant that his early religious education did not produce his sense of the presence
of God. Rather, he holds that his early nurture in the Christian faith influenced him because it
found a resonance with his a priori intuition of God. By a priori Baillie means that his
awareness of a power over and above the material world was a constant element of all his
experience, but was not generated by his experience. Consequently, when Baillie heard the
Gospel stories he responded, he says, because he recognized in the stories of Christ the same
presence that he already intuitively knew. 276
description of his positionalthough he has in mind the idea that this intuition is a mode of
perception. Intuitionism is in itself a suitable enough name, since intuition and perception are
two Latin words which in this usage are virtually identical in meaning. 277 And by
perception Baillie is thinking of something beyond our experience of the corporeal world
Our lives would indeed be poor and savourless if we had no awareness, in which we could
repose the least degree of trust, of anything in reality save what we can see and hear and
touch and taste and smell. My contention will indeed be that we have even what can properly
be called sense experience of other things than these. The human spirit, I shall say, develops
certain subtler senses or sensitivities which go beyond the bodily sensesa sense of humour,
a sense of honour, a sense of propriety, a sense of proportion, a sense of (literary) style; and
likewise of a sense of duty, a sensitive conscience, a sense of the holy or of the divine, a
275
John Baillie, Our Knowledge of God (London: Oxford University Press, 1963), 4.
276
Hood, Baillie, Oman, and Macmurray, 69.
277
John Baillie, The Sense of the Presence of God (New York: Scribner, 1962), 54.
278
Ibid., 52.
128
sense of the presence of God.279
concerned to argue in respects of the sense of the presence of God. The proper name of
I have been particularly concerned to argue is that faith is one such primary mode of
awareness. Faith does not deduce from other realities that are present the existence of a God
who is not present but absent; rather is it an awareness of the divine Presence itself, however
hidden behind the veils of sense. Apart from such awareness there can be no true religion. 281
Here Baillie, like Otto, follows a path well-trodden by both philosophers and mystics
reality (knowledge by acquaintance).282 Yet the two are not entirely divorced for the very
moment that we are confronted with any reality, so becoming acquainted with it, our minds
start to frame certain propositions regarding it.283 We are thus led from acquaintance to
description. However, it is nevertheless the reality itself, rather than the propositions,
At this point, the question arises: how might we verify the truth of any proposition which
arises in such a manner? Put this way, that is in terms of verification, the question clearly
expresses the concerns of Logical Positivism. That school of thought has long been in eclipse
concern. But even so, we may still wonder: how does one go outside religious experience to
test its veracity? Baillies answer is simply that one cannot. Religious experience, however, is
It would appear that the veridical nature of any primary mode of apprehension cannot be
tested by reference to anything outside itself. Each must carry its own witness or must
collapse. If the trust we repose in it be not self-authenticating, there is no other apparent way
279
Ibid., 52-53.
280
Ibid., 64.
281
Ibid., 88-89.
282
See the discussion in 4. The knowledge of truth and knowledge of reality, ibid., 13-18.
283
Ibid., 16.
284
Ibid., 16-17.
129
of authenticating it.285
Such a claim concerned some of Baillies critics who saw it leading to an uncritical, indeed
uncriticisable, dogmatism.286 And it does seem that Baillie goes too far if he means to suggest
our apprehension of God is the only basis upon which we construct our theological claims. It
does not seem to me, however, that Baillie intended any such thing for, as we saw in the
quotation from Hood (above) when Baillie heard the Gospel stories he responded, he says,
because he recognized in the stories of Christ the same presence that he already intuitively
knew. Baillie's Christian faith, in other words, arose not simply out of a sense of divine
presence. It arose also out of encounter with the Christian kerygma. It was only when that
awareness found expression in the Gospel of Christ, and that through the proclamation of the
knew. Baillies intuitive knowledge of God, then, only rises to the level of Christian faith
One of the stronger criticisms raised against Baillie was that his work lacked philosophical
rigour. No such criticism, however, could be urged against William P. Alston who is widely
recognized as one of the most eminent of recent analytical philosophers. In Perceiving God:
The Epistemology of Religious Experience (1991) Alston put an extraordinarily rigorous case
for the claim that experiential awareness (perception) of God can provide epistemic
justification for what he called manifestion or M-beliefs about God. Here Alston is
thinking of the religious experience of ordinary believers whose experience leads them to
form M-beliefs to the effect that God is doing something for or to them (strengthening,
guiding, communicating a message, etc.) or that he has some property (goodness, power,
lovingness, etc.)
285
Ibid., 73.
286
See, for instance, Clyde A. Holbrook, Review of Baillie, Sense of the Presence of God, Journal of Bible
and Religion 31, no. 2 (1963): 156-59.
130
Alston takes mystical experiences to involve direct, non-sensory experiences in which
something is presented, or given to the subject and which the subject identifies as God.
This idea of presentation or givenness leads Alston to classify such experiences as a form
distinguish them from sense perception (SP). It is important to note here that of the various
accounts of perception on offer Alston favours the Theory of Appearing. In this account one
subject forms any beliefs about it and without asking whether the object actually is such-and-
such. By way of example, imagine I am watching a football game. There will be a great deal
going on to which I pay scant attention and about which I form no particular belief. I see the
grass, for instance, it appears to me but I form no specific belief about its colour. Much less
do I reflect upon the truth of any such belief. The theory of appearing seeks to take account of
such phenomena by speaking not in the active but in the passive voice. Thus, not I see green
but I am being appeared to greenly. It is not necessary that I do anything with the greenness
of the grass which appears to me. I form no beliefs about it, much less inquire into whether
the grass really is green. Following on from this we can say that in his account of MP Alston
wants to speak of the subject being appeared to numinously (my phrase)an idea which
Perhaps the most interesting question is whether beliefs which arise in consequence of
being appeared to numinously are to be regarded as veridical. Are they, in other words,
true? Here Alston takes great pains to argue that beliefs based on MP are no worse off than
beliefs based on SP. This is at first a startling claim in regards of which Alston makes two
important points. The first is that all attempts to construct a rigorous philosophical argument
which would demonstrate the reliability of SP as a belief forming mechanism are ultimately
131
unsuccessful.287 MP is therefore no worse off than SP in this regard.288 Second, our primary
reason for accepting the validity of perceptual beliefs (i.e. beliefs formed on the basis of SP)
is due to the fact that SP is an accepted doxastic practice which we have no reason to
consider unreliable and which, in fact, has considerable practical benefit.289 But the same
argument can be applied to MPat least within the scope of a particular religious tradition. In
short, Alstons contention is that such positive arguments we can put for MP as a belief
forming mechanism are no weaker than those we can put for SP. Equally, such arguments as
we can urge against MP also serve to bring SP into question. Thus, if it is rational to engage in
In all of this, we must note that Alston is speaking by and large of prima facie
justification of beliefs. That is to say, his argument is essentially that for any perceptual
am prima facie justified in believing it to be such-and-such unless I have good reason to think
otherwise. Unless, that is, I have what is known as a defeater for my belief. So, for example,
if I have an experience which I take to be a case of MP, and in that experience I conceive God
as appearing to me as (say) loving, then I am prima facie justified in forming the belief God
is loving. I might, however, find myself in possession of a good argument against this belief
(a defeater) which over-rides this prima facie justification.291 This seems a rather pedestrian
claim until Alston points out that the criticisms commonly urged against the reliability of MP
apply equally to SP; to accept such criticisms in the one case, but not the other, is arbitrarily to
apply a double-standard.292
287
See chapter 3 of William P. Alston, Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1991), 102ff.
288
Ibid., 6.
289
See chapter 4 of ibid., 146ff.
290
Ibid., 274. Note that here Alston makes reference to CP, but this appears to be an editorial oversight.
Elsewhere in this work he refers to CMP or Christian Mystical Perceptual Practice, ibid., 193. CMP is
one specific instance of MP.
291
See the discussion in Chapter 5 of ibid., 184ff. and particularly the conclusion of that chapter (ibid., 225).
292
Ibid., 199.
132
Alston rejects the idea that all beliefs arising from MP (or SP for that matter) are to be
uncritically received, but how, given the above, are M-beliefs to be assessed? Here Alston
stresses the function of background beliefs and the role they play in both MP and SP. 293 To
form the belief that God is loving, for instance, is really to connect certain experiences in a
loved. Whilst there are enormously difficult issues involved herehow, for instance, do we
learn abstract concepts such as love in the first place?we can at least grasp Alstons point
that, again, whatever difficulties might arise for an account of beliefs based on MP they are no
greater than in a corresponding account for SP.294 We might also note that in speaking of SP
belief formation.296 In a response to just such an objection from Tilley, 297 Alston observes that
the community will refuse to accept a particular report of perception of God because it runs
into conflict with the background belief system, whatever the individual says. 298 Religious
belief, in other words, is only partially grounded in MP and overall Alstons point is not to
argue (as some have) that MP is the entire story. Rather, there is a cumulative effects
argument for religious belief in which the total caseof which MP is only one partis
Alvin Plantinga is, like William P. Alston, another proponent of rigorous philosophical
argumentation. Perhaps an even more eminent philosopher that Alston, Plantingas Warrant
Trilogyconsisting of the works Warrant: The Current Debate (1993), Warrant and Proper
Function (1993) and Warranted Christian Belief (2000)is an extended argument for the
293
Ibid., 81-93.
294
For a convenient summary see ibid., 248-50.
295
Chapter 4 of ibid., 146ff.
296
Ibid., 163.
297
Terrence W. Tilley, Religious Pluralism as a Problem for Practical Religious Epistemology, Religious
Studies 30, no. 2 (1994): 166.
298
William P. Alston, Response to Critics, Religious Studies 30, no. 2 (1994): 176.
299
Alston, Perceiving God, 292-307.
133
view that Christian belief is rationally acceptable. It is beyond the scope of the present
treatment to enter into a detailed discussion of the Warrant Trilogy, and so I will content
myself with a brief coverage of three themes which I find of particular interest followed by a
The first book of the Warrant Trilogy (Warrant: The Current Debate) was written to
must a belief satisfy in order to pass muster as an instance of knowledge. Here philosophers
are seeking to rigorously specify the criteria which distinguish true instances of knowledge
from cases which are somehow substandardbeing right by virtue of a lucky guess or simply
being very sure are instances of that sort. Something more than simply being right, or being
very sure is required. This something more typically goes by the name justification or
warrant but there is, frustratingly, little consensus on what justification or warrant
actually is. Some philosophers hold to internalist theories of justification which, roughly
speaking, demand that a person is immediately aware of the justificatory grounds of a belief.
By contrast, externalist theories of justification make no such demand insisting that a belief
justification then being external to the believer. In Warrant: The Current Debate301
Plantinga argues that the main varieties of internalism and externalism fail, that nobody has
properly identified the something more that distinguishes actual instances of knowledge
from instances of mere true belief. In so doing he utilises the term warrant rather than
epistemologists.
What particularly interests me here are certain aspects of the alternative account of
300
Sarah Bachelard, Foolishness to the Greeks: Plantinga and the Epistemology of Christian Belief, Sophia
48, no. 2 (2009): 105-18.
301
Alvin Plantinga, Warrant: The Current Debate (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
134
warrant which Plantinga proposes. He lays out this account in Warrant and Proper Function302
and then applies it to Christian belief in Warranted Christian Belief.303 The account he
proposes is that of proper function and is the view, essentially, that when ones belief-
forming mechanisms operate as they should (i.e. display proper function) then they issue in
true beliefs. This is an externalist theory of justification because one is not required to have
special access to (i.e. to be aware of) reasons which justify Christian belief. It thus amounts to
the idea that one may be warranted in believing in God not by being in conscious possession
of any justifying arguments but by forming such a belief on the basis of properly functioning
belief-forming mechanisms.
Plantinga then goes on to show how this notion of proper function resonates with
Calvins notion that there is within the human mind, and indeed by natural instinct, an
awareness of divinity.304 This awareness of God, the sensus divinitatis, is for both Calvin
and Plantinga a normal aspect of human experience. It is naturally inborn in all, and is fixed
God has created us human beings with a belief producing process or source of belief, the
sensus divinitatis; this source works under various conditions to produce beliefs about God,
including, of course, beliefs that immediately entail his existence. Belief produced in this
waycan easily meet the conditions for warrant; given that it is true (and held sufficiently
strongly), it would constitute knowledge.306
This, however, is only half the story for the same theological tradition (Reformed) which so
strongly affirms the notion of the sensus divinitatis affirms in equally strong terms the noetic
effect of sin. The idea here is that human sinfulness affects the human mind both in its
cognitive and affective functions.307 Regarding the first, our intellect is darkened by a sort of
blindness, a sort of imperceptiveness, dullness, stupidity308 such that we cannot know God.
302
Alvin Plantinga, Warrant and Proper Function (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
303
Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
304
Jean Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1559) 1.3.1.
305
Ibid.
306
Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 199.
307
Cf. Bennema who writes of the cognitive and volitional aspects in the Johannine conception of belief,
Johannine Epistemology, 119-20.
308
Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 207.
135
Regarding the second, we find ourselves unwilling to forego our own self-interest in order to
submit to the divine will; [we] want to be autonomous, beholden to no one. Perhaps this is
the deepest root of the condition of sin.309 What follows is simply that human beings no
longer enjoy proper function with regard to their cognitive faculties. The sensus divinitatis
is corrupted such that something over and above a mere awareness of God is required as the
basis of faith. For Plantinga this something is the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit 310
Such an account of faith involves a complex interaction between the Holy Spirit and the
human agent as both knower and actor. It involves the Holy Spirit restoring the human
cognitive capacities such that we can both see the truth of the Gospel and are moved to
divinely inspired scripture, the work of the Holy Spirit, and faith understood as a firm and
certain knowledge of Gods benevolence towards us, founded upon the truth of the freely
given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the
Much more could be said about Plantingas account of Christian knowledge, but I wish
now to close the circle by making reference to a most interesting criticism of his account by
Bachelard.314 Pointing out that the Christian contemplative tradition has often involved
and desire, she suggests that Plantingas account is distorted by virtue of its emphasis on the
cognitive. In essence, Bachelard accuses Plantinga of divorcing heart and mind and of holding
to the view that Christian faith consists in the affirmation of propositions. Regardless of
whether this criticism is valid or not (I think it is overstated) it does serve to illustrate a
309
Ibid.
310
Ibid., 206.
311
Ibid.
312
Calvin, Institutes (1559), 3.2.7.
313
Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 244.
314
Bachelard, Foolishness to the Greeks.
136
tension which arises again and again, a tension between religious experience and theological
knowing and unknowing? Are the philosophers and theologians fated to stand in
irreconcilable conflict with the mystics? Personally, I think not and believe that a reading of
Johns Gospel in light of the reflections of this chapter will demonstrate the case.
Interestingly, the Gospel is attributed to one who, in the thinking of the Eastern Christian
knowledge of God, a knowledge he expressed (so the traditional account goes) in Gospel,
Epistles, and Apocalypse. In light of this I think it improper for Bachelard to represent the
It seems to me that Otto is here quite correct and I believe that Johns Gospel evidences the
fact. Here we have written testimony to the ineffablean oxymoronic claim which succeeds
because, like Jesus signs, the Gospel points beyond itself to something greater. Bachelard is
quite correct to point to the limitations of human language. But she is short-sighted, in my
view, to overlook the fact that the Holy Spirit works sacramentally to breathe life into the
words. We are again back to Basil: the way of the knowledge of God lies from One Spirit
f. Summary
We have seen that there were, during the 20th century, quite notable thinkers who were
faith. From William James through to Alvin Plantinga we find affirmation of the idea that
315
Otto, Idea of the Holy, 2.
316
See p.83.
137
Christian religious experience is a response to an objective and external subject identified, of
course, as the God of Christian faith. The idea that God is sensed or perceived in a
manner analogous to sense perception is clearly an attractive one. It is an idea that is not
easily discounted given that any argument urged against it can quite easily be co-opted against
the veracity of beliefs founded on sense perception. Thus to affirm the veracity of sense
perception whilst rejecting the notion of direct spiritual perception raises a very real danger of
religious experience as primarily a sort of self-awareness and suggests that we should speak
The relationship between the rational and the non-rational is complex and whilst our
representative figures brought the two together in different ways they all refused the idea that
one or the other is by itself sufficient. They all affirmed that religious experience is the
primary or foundational aspect of religious belief, but not even William Jameswho rejected
experience. However, Jamess own religious anomie I take as evidence of the importance of
having some rational framework upon which to hang ones hat. He may be interestingly
contrasted with Baillie who affirmed both the primacy of spiritual perception whilst speaking
A Christian account of the knowledge of God is properly a theological one. In this respect
Plantingas account is particularly interesting in its appeal to the theological notions of the
sensus divinitatis and the noetic effect of sin. The idea here is that a perceptual awareness of
God is available to all, yet it does not issue in faith due to the corrupting effects of human sin.
It is the role of the Holy Spirit to overcome this deficit. In this regard Baillies biographical
account of the resonance he found between his own unformed sense of the presence of God
138
and the proclamation of the Christian gospel commands attention. So too Jamess loss of faith
shows the wisdom of Tillichs idea of faith as a centred act of the entire person in that a
rationally coherent account of faith serves to bolster, rather than to diminish, ones access to
the non-rational. Here I can only commend Ottos observation that whilst the non-rational is
the true core of religious faith, this in no way justifies an abandonment of the rational and any
139
Chapter 12
Conclusion
Our study began with a brief overview of Modernism and its influence on the
development of the two main streams of Protestant thought, Liberalism and Evangelicalism.
We saw how, with the demise of Modernist assumptions, both these approaches have
struggled to remain relevant, let alone substantiate the truth claims of the Christian faith
(Section 1.a). Our response was to investigate the Johannine account of the knowledge of God
(Part One), and to inquire after themes in contemporary epistemology which might indicate
whether such an account is initially plausible (Part Two). At the outset it was noted that such
an inquiry would be a limited one which would serve primarily to lay the groundwork for
more detailed study (Sec. 1.d.i) but with that caveat I think we may now say that the
Johannine account of the knowledge of God is at least initially plausible, as a more detailed
the notion of epistemic virtue (Sec. 8.a), the role of testimony in forming Christian
belief (8.b), and the action of the Holy Spirit as epistemic agent (8.c). None of these are taken
to be primary (or foundational), indeed, this thesis proceeded on the assumption that the most
140
foundationalism (Sec. 1.b.i). Not only is such an approach consistent with recent moves in
philosophy (p. 4.16), it seems that now we may say holism is entirely consistent the Gospels
own approach (p.87). An important conclusion would be that Christian faith is justified not on
the basis of a single epistemic principle, but on the basis of a number of converging lines of
evidence.
With respect to the theme of epistemic virtue, our inquiry into those who rejected Jesus
was highly informative. One key aspect of their opposition was ignorance in respects of Jesus
origin (p.55ff. See also sec. 5.c). This seemingly trivial issue is, for Jesus opponents, decisive
(6:42; 7:27,41,52 et passim). It is at first an issue for Nathanael (1:46) and, we must assume,
for the Woman of Samaria (p. 55n129). Objections on this point are dispelled, not by
clarification regarding Jesus origins (only the reader of the Gospel has any insight on this
point, p. 61) but by what, ultimately, appears to be a Spirit-inspired apprehension of his divine
origin. What is fundamental here, however, is that both Nathanael and the woman show a
willingness to reappraise their initial religious certainties (Sec. 4.d; 5.b,c), and in this they
stand in stark contrast to the religious leaders. Such reappraisal is tied intimately with how
one appraises Jesus at a personal level: ultimately, the call is to accept him as a person such
that Johannine faith ought to be understood in relational, rather than propositional, terms (Sec.
6.b). Those unwilling to make such a reappraisal, for whatever reason, remain mired in
unbelief demonstrating that ones prior commitments have epistemic consequences (Sec. 2.f).
This finds resonance with contemporary interest in the theme of virtue epistemology (Sec.
9.c) and further investigations on this theme promise to cast great light upon the Johannine
One respect in which the theme of virtue epistemology could be further developed is by
greater consideration of the notion of affective disability (p. 23, 135) and the fact that this is
mainly negative in its impacts. That is to say this disability issues in objections to faith in
141
Christ. There has been much work done on the question of defeaters in philosophy
(basically beliefs which undermine epistemic justificationp. 132) and it seems to me that
development of this idea and, particularly, the way in which defeaters themselves are defeated
Part of the idea here is that, in the absence of some sort of objection, faith ought to arise
as a primitive impulse (William James, p. 123). This resonates with Plantingas notion that
faith arises when our faculties function as they ought (a proper function account of warrant
Sec. 11.e). In Johannine terms, one ought to just see that Jesus is the Christ, but a
spiritual disability (or cognitive disability) akin to physical blindness prevents this from
happening (p. 23). Ones response, in the first instance, ought to be to recognise this disability
and seek divine aid to overcome it. Those who think they have no such disability, and
therefore no such need for divine aid, will remain blind (John 9:41).
Perhaps more importantly, once one does recognise this disability, one may be healed
from it such that faith arises naturally, in the absence of justificatory arguments. Recall here
the distinction between internalist and externalist accounts of justification (p. 113, 134). The
idea is that one may be justified in believing on the basis of religious (spiritual) experience
without being able to give any justificatory account of that experience just as one may be
justified in believing on the basis of sense experience without being able to give justificatory
account in this instance either. True, the reliable operation of my spiritual perception would be
a precondition of the (externalist) justification of this experience. But as Alston has argued the
issues here are not so very different than in the case of sense perception (Sec. 11.d) . It is, at
the very least, not obvious that the idea of spiritual perception ought to be regarded with
particular cynicism. A further study of Alston, particularly the argument of Perceiving God
and the literature which has risen in response to his claims in that work, would be of benefit in
142
The question of testimony as a source of knowledge arises in two respects. First, the
notion of testimony as a source of knowledge is one which the Gospel affirms both explicitly
and implicitly (Sec. 8.b)again I will not repeat the previous discussion here. What is more
justification have application to epistemology of testimony. Little was made of this in the
thesis other than to point out that the two Scottish Enlightenment philosophers, Thomas Reid
and David Hume, were at odds on this question (p.103). What was not discussed was the fact
that the Humean account has held sway for some centuries, and only recently are philosophers
becoming aware that despite Humes influence, Reids account has perhaps more to commend
ithis greater sensitivity in respect of the social aspects of knowing is particularly important.
We should, of course, not overlook the contributions already made, 317 but the shifting sands of
contemporary philosophy are here once more a problem. Only in the work of Bauckham 318 do
Coady, taken into account. This seems to me an extraordinarily promising area of inquiry,
epistemological issue which this thesis uncovers. Our overview of 20 th century developments
(Chapter 11) began with William James who worked at a time when religious experience was
regarded largely as a (pathological) psychological phenomenon only. We saw how this view
was challenged through the work of recognised philosophers such that the idea of religious
prima facie credible (p. 132). Such an idea finds rigorous development in the work of William
317
Members of the legal profession, no doubt due to their professional interest in the question of testimony,
feature prominently here. The classic treatment, which spawned an entire tradition, is by an American lawyer
and jurist, Simon Greenleaf, An Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists, by the Rules of
Evidence Administered in Courts of Justice. With an Account of the Trial of Jesus (Boston, MA: C. C. Little
and J. Brown, 1846).
318
Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 2006). and The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple: Narrative, History, and Theology in the Gospel
of John (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007).
143
P. Alston (Sec. 11.d) and Alvin Plantinga (Sec. 11.e) although our treatment of either was too
cursory for this thesis to put the claim that they have succeed. What was identified was the
crucial relationship between ontology (what exists) and epistemology (Chapter 10), and the
way in which we might apply Transcendental Arguments to justify the very idea of a
supernatural (non-physical) epistemic agent (Sec. 10.b.ii). The entire point of the investigation
of chapter 11 was not merely to show that the Johannine account of the Holy Spirit as
epistemic agent is prima facie credible, but also to show how a more developed defence of
that claim might be offered. The work of Alston and Plantinga would be critical to such a
developed defence.
Finally, it is once again worth reiterating that none of these considerations are primary, or
foundational to the others (Sec. 8.d). The epistemology of Johns Gospel is, in the end
none being sufficient, all being necessary for faith. Thus, following Griffiths, 319 we may
affirm that it is wrong-headed to seek a single Universal Epistemic Principle for Christian
theology, and we see why it is that, as far as Christian theology is concerned, the Modernist
approach (Sec 1.a), with its commitment to epistemological foundationalism, could never
succeed. At this point I regard the initial decision to reject epistemological foundationalism in
is necessary to any properly Christian epistemology may be one of the more salutary lessons
of this thesis.
Very much more could be said. Indeed, to co-opt the saying of the Johannine author, if
every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have
room for the books that would be written (John 21:25). We have here merely scratched the
surface of what is a very profound account of the way in which we might come to a
knowledge of God. The conclusion of our investigation is this: that fundamental to the
319
Griffiths, How Epistemology Matters.
144
Johannine account of the knowledge of God are three epistemological themes which stand in
holistic relationship: the notion of epistemic virtue, the role of testimony in forming Christian
belief, and the action of the Holy Spirit as epistemic agent. Such an account is, when
considered from the perspective of contemporary epistemology, at least initially plausible and
145
Bibliography
Alston, William P. Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1991.
. Response to Critics. Religious Studies 30, no. 2 (1994): 171-80.
Audi, Robert. Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge.
Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy 2. London: Routledge, 1998.
Avalos, Hector. The End of Biblical Studies. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2007.
Bachelard, Sarah. Foolishness to the Greeks: Plantinga and the Epistemology of Christian
Belief. Sophia 48, no. 2 (2009): 105-18.
Bailey, Kenneth E. Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels.
Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008.
Baillie, John. Our Knowledge of God. London: Oxford University Press, 1963.
. The Sense of the Presence of God. New York: Scribner, 1962.
Barclay, William. The Promise of the Spirit. London: Epworth Press, 1960.
Bardon, Adrian. Transcendental Arguments. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2006. No
pages.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/t/trans-ar.htm. Cited 9 Oct. 2008.
Barrett, C.K. The Gospel According to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes
on the Greek Text. New York: Macmillan, 1955.
Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics. Volume I, Part 1: The Doctrine of the Word of God.
Translated by G.T. Thomson. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1936.
. Credo. Translated by J. Strathearn McNab. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1964.
Bassler, Jouette M. Mixed Signals: Nicodemus in the Fourth Gospel. Journal of Biblical
Literature 108, no. 4 (1989): 635-46.
Bastow, David. Otto and Numinous Experience. Religious Studies 12, no. 2 (1976): 159-76.
Bauckham, Richard. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony.
Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006.
. The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple: Narrative, History, and Theology in the
Gospel of John. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007.
Beasley-Murray, George Raymond. John. 2nd ed. Word Biblical Commentary 36. Nashville,
TN: Thomas Nelson, 1999.
Bennema, Cornelis. Christ, the Spirit and the Knowledge of God: A Study in Johannine
Epistemology, in The Bible and Epistemology: Biblical Soundings on the Knowledge
146
of God, edited by Mary Healy and Robin Parry. Milton Keynes, Eng.: Paternoster,
2007: 107-33.
Billings, J. Todd. The Word of God for the People of God: An Entryway to the Theological
Interpretation of Scripture. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010.
Blackburn, Simon. Truth: A Guide for the Perplexed. The Gifford Lectures 2004. London:
Penguin Books, 2005.
Blackburn, Simon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1996.
Brown, Raymond Edward. Introduction to the Gospel of John. Edited by Francis J. Moloney.
The Anchor Bible Reference Library. New York: Doubleday, 2003.
. The Community of the Beloved Disciple. New York: Paulist Press, 1979.
. The Gospel According to John I-XII. Vol. 1. 2 vols. The Anchor Bible 29. Garden
City, NY: Doubleday, 1966.
. The Gospel According to John XIII-XXI. Vol. 2. 2 vols. The Anchor Bible 29A.
Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966.
Bultmann, Rudolf Karl. The Gospel of John: A Commentary. Translated by George Raymond
Beasley-Murray. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1971.
. Theology of the New Testament. Translated by Kendrick Grobel. Vol. 2. 2 vols.
London: SCM Press, 1965.
Burge, Gary M. Interpreting the Fourth Gospel. Guides to New Testament Exegesis 3. Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1992.
Calvin, Jean. Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion. Edited by John T. McNeill.
Translated by Ford Lewis Battles. Vol. 1. 2 vols. The Library of Christian Classics Vol.
XX. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1960.
. Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion. Edited by John T. McNeill. Translated by
Ford Lewis Battles. Vol. 2. 2 vols. The Library of Christian Classics Vol. XXI.
Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1960.
Caputo, John D. What Would Jesus Deconstruct? The Good News of Postmodernity For the
Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007.
Carson, Donald A. Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church: Understanding a
Movement and Its Implications. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005.
. The Function of the Paraclete in John 16:7-11. Journal of Biblical Literature 98,
no. 4 (1979): 547-66.
Carter, Warren. John: Storyteller, Interpreter, Evangelist. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2006.
Cassam, Quassim. Transcendental Arguments. Edited by Ted Honderich. The Oxford
Companion to Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Cloud, Henry, and John Sims Townsend. How People Grow: What the Bible Reveals About
Personal Growth. Sydney, NSW, Aust.: Strand, 2001.
Coady, C.A.J. Reid and the Social Operations of Mind, in Cambridge Companion to
Thomas Reid, edited by Terence Cuneo and Rene van Woudenberg. Cambridge
Companions. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004: 180-203.
. Testimony: A Philosophical Study. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.
Countryman, Louis William. The Mystical Way in the Fourth Gospel: Crossing Over into
God. Rev. Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1994.
Culpepper, R. Alan. Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design. Philadelphia,
PA: Fortress Press, 1983.
Dockery, David S. Introduction: The Challenge of Postmodernism, in The Challenge of
Postmodernism: An Evangelical Engagement, edited by David S. Dockery. Wheaton,
IL: Victor Books, 1997: 13-18.
Dockery, David S., ed. Challenge of Postmodernism: An Evangelical Engagement. Wheaton,
147
IL: Victor Books, 1997.
Elliott, Mark W. Postmodernism and Theology, in Getting Your Bearings: Engaging with
Contemporary Theologians, edited by Philip Duce and Daniel Strange. Leicester,
Eng.: Apollos, 2003: 215-87.
Elowsky, Joel C., ed. John 1-10. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture New Testament
IVa. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006.
. John 11-21. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament IVb.
Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007.
Farmer, Craig S. Changing Images of the Samaritan Woman in Early Reformed
Commentaries on John. Church History 63, no. 3 (1996): 365-75.
Feldman, Richard. Epistemology. Edited by Tom L. Beauchamp. Foundations of Philosophy.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003.
Ferguson, Everett. Backgrounds of Early Christianity. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
1993.
Ferguson, Sinclair B. The Holy Spirit. Contours of Christian Theology. Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 1996.
Fotion, Nicholas G. Logical Positivism. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, edited by
Ted Honderich. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995: 507-08.
Fuller, Robert C. Review of James, Varieties of Religious Experience. Church History 55,
no. 2 (June 1986): 247-48.
Gettier, Edmund L. Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? Analysis 23, no. 6 (1963): 121-23.
Greco, John, and John Turri. Virtue Epistemology. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
edited by Edward N. Zalta. 2009. No pages.
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2010/entries/epistemology-virtue/. Cited 17 Dec.
2009
Greenleaf, Simon. An Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists, by the Rules of
Evidence Administered in Courts of Justice. With an Account of the Trial of Jesus.
Boston, MA: C. C. Little and J. Brown, 1846.
Grenz, Stanley J. Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context.
Edited by John R. Franke. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001.
. Primer on Postmodernism. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996.
. Renewing the Center: Evangelical Theology in a Post-Theological Era. Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000.
Griffiths, Paul J. How Epistemology Matters to Theology. Journal of Religion 79, no. 1
(1999): 1-18.
Groothuis, Douglas R. Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of
Postmodernism. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000.
Guthrie, Donald. New Testament Theology. Leicester, Eng.: Inter-Varsity Press, 1981.
Hetherington, Stephen. Gettier Problems. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2005. No
pages.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/g/gettier.htm. Cited 13 Aug. 2008.
Hjelm, Ingrid. What do Samaritans and Jews have in Common? Recent Trends in Samaritan
Studies. Currents in Biblical Research 3, no. 1 (October 1, 2004): 9 -59.
Holbrook, Clyde A. Review of Baillie, Sense of the Presence of God. Journal of Bible and
Religion 31, no. 2 (1963): 156-59.
Hood, Adam. Baillie, Oman, and Macmurray: Experience and Religious Belief. Ashgate New
Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology, and Biblical Studies. Aldershot, Eng.:
Ashgate, 2003.
Hughes, P.E. Grace, Means of. Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, edited by Walter A.
Elwell. Baker Reference Library. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1984: 482-
148
83.
Hume, David. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Edited by Antony Flew. Paul
Carus Student Editions 1. La Salle, IL: Open Court, 2001.
James, William. The Letters of William James. Edited by Henry James. Vol. 2. 2 vols. Limited
ed. Boston, MA: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1920.
. The Principles of Psychology. Vol. 2. 2 vols. New York: Henry Holt and Company,
1890.
. Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. New York: Longmans,
Green & Co., 1902.
. Will to Believe in The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy.
New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1897: 1-31
Jerome. Jerome: Letters and Select Works. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace.
Translated by W.H. Fremantle, G. Lewis, and W.G. Martley. 14 vols. A Select Library
of the Christian Church: Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Second Series. 6. Peabody,
MA: Hendrickson, 2004.
Keener, Craig S. The Gospel of John: A Commentary. 2 vols. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson,
2003.
. The Historical Jesus of the Gospels. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009.
King, Karen L. What Is Gnosticism? Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press, 2003.
Kstenberger, Andreas J. Jesus as Rabbi in the Fourth Gospel. Bulletin for Biblical
Research 8 (1998): 97-128.
. A Theology of Johns Gospel and Letters. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009.
Kruse, Colin G. The Gospel According to John: An Introduction and Commentary. The
Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 4. Leicester, Eng.: Inter-Varsity Press, 2003.
Lackey, Jennifer, and Ernest Sosa, eds. The Epistemology of Testimony. Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 2006.
Laudan, Larry. Explaining the Success of Science: Beyond Epistemic Realism and
Relativism, in Science and Reality: Recent Work in the Philosophy of Science:
Essays in Honor of Ernan McMullin, edited by James T. Cushing, C.F. Delaney, and
Gary M. Gutting. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984: 83-105.
Lee, Dorothy Ann. In the Spirit of Truth: Worship and Prayer in the Gospel of John and the
Early Fathers. Vigiliae Christianae 58, no. 3 (2004): 277-97.
. The Gospel of John and the Five Senses. Journal of Biblical Literature 129, no. 1
(2010): 115-27.
Lindbeck, George A. The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age.
Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1984.
Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Translated by
Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Theory and History of Literature v. 10.
Manchester, Eng.: Manchester Univ. Press, 1986.
Mackie, J.L. The Miracle of Theism: Arguments for and Against the Existence of God.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982.
Marshall, I. Howard. Lamb of God. Edited by Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight, and I.
Howard Marshall. Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels. Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 1992.
McGrath, Alister E. A Scientific Theology: Volume 1, Nature. 3 vols. Edinburgh: T. & T.
Clark, 2001.
. A Scientific Theology: Volume 2, Reality. 3 vols. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2002.
. Christian Theology: An Introduction. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.
. Historical Theology: An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought. Oxford:
149
Blackwell Publishers, 1998.
. The Foundations of Dialogue in Science and Religion. Malden, MA: Blackwell,
1998.
. The Science of God: An Introduction to Scientific Theology. London: T. & T. Clark,
2004.
McLaren, Brian D. Generous Orthodoxy: Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical,
Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical,
Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican,
Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-yet-Hopeful, Emergent,
Unfinished Christian. El Cajon, CA: Emergent YS, 2004.
Meier, Paul D., Frank B. Minirth, Frank B. Wichern, and Donald E. Ratcliffe. Introduction to
Psychology and Counseling: Christian Perspectives and Applications. 2nd ed. Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1991.
Meyer, F.B. Gospel of John: The Life and Light of Men, Love to the Uttermost. London:
Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1950.
Migliore, Daniel L. Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology.
Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991.
Moloney, Francis J. The Gospel of John. Edited by Daniel J. Harrington. Sacra Pagina Series
4. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1998.
Moltmann, Jurgen. The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism
of Christian Theology. London: SCM Press, 2001.
Murphy, Nancey C. Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning. Cornell Studies in the
Philosophy of Religion. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990.
Nash, Ronald H. Word of God and the Mind of Man: The Crisis of Revealed Truth in
Contemporary Theology. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1982.
Neill, Stephen, and N.T. Wright. The Interpretation of the New Testament, 1861-1986. 2nd ed.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Noll, Mark A. Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity. 2nd ed. Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000.
Norden, Eduard. Agnostos Theos; Untersuchungen Zur Formengeschichte Religioser Rede.
Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1923.
Oden, Thomas C. After ModernityWhat?: Agenda for Theology. Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan, 1992.
. The Death of Modernity and Postmodern Evangelical Spirituality, in The
Challenge of Postmodernism: An Evangelical Engagement, edited by David S.
Dockery. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1997: 19-33.
. The Rebirth of Orthodoxy: Signs of New Life in Christianity. San Francisco, CA:
HarperSanFrancisco, 2003.
Otto, Rudolf. The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea of the
Divine and Its Relation to the Rational. Translated by John W. Harvey. Revised with
additions. London: Oxford University Press, 1936.
OBrien, Kelli S. Written That You May Believe: John 20 and Narrative Rhetoric. The
Catholic Biblical Quarterly 67, no. 2 (2005): 284-302.
Pannenberg, Wolfhart. Systematic Theology. 3 vols. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991.
Pascal, Blaise. Pensees. Translated by A.J. Krailsheimer. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth,
Eng.: Penguin Books, 1966.
Patomki, Heikki, and Colin Wight. After Postpositivism? The Promises of Critical
Realism. International Studies Quarterly 44, no. 2 (June 2000): 213-237.
Peterson, Eugene H. Subversive Spirituality. Edited by Jim Lyster, John Sharon, and Peter
Santucci. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997.
150
Plantinga, Alvin. Warrant and Proper Function. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
. Warrant: The Current Debate. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
. Warranted Christian Belief. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Polanyi, Michael. Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press, 1974.
Quinton, Anthony. Romanticism, philosophical, in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy,
edited by Ted Honderich. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995: 778.
Reformed Church in the United States. The Three Forms of Unity: Heidelberg Catechism,
Belgic Confession of Faith, Canons of Dort. South Holland, IL: The Evangelism
Committee: Protestant Reformed Church, 1983.
Rightly Explaining the Word of Truth: Guidelines for Christian Clergy and Teachers in their
use of the New Testament with reference to the New Testaments presentation of Jews
and Judaism. The Council of Christians and Jews (Victoria) Inc., NDA. No pages.
http://www.ccjaustralia.org/en/?item=209. Cited 16 Nov. 2010
Roberts, Michelle. Creative Minds Mimic Schizophrenia. BBC News, May 29, 2010. No
pages.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/10154775.stm. Cited 30 May 2010
Rohr, Richard. Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer. Rev. and updated ed.
New York: Crossroad, 2003.
. The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See. Mulgrave, Vic., Aust.: John
Garratt Publishing, 2009.
Scott, Ernest Findlay. The Fourth Gospel: Its Purpose and Theology. Edinburgh: T. & T.
Clark, 1906.
Sharpe, Kevin J. Science of God: Truth in the Age of Science. Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield Publishers, 2006.
Smalley, Stephen S. John: Evangelist and Interpreter. 2nd ed. New Testament profiles.
Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998.
Stout, Jeffrey. The Flight from Authority: Religion, Morality, and the Quest for Autonomy.
Revisions: A Series of Books on Ethics. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1981.
Sweet, Leonard I., Brian D. McLaren, and Jerry Haselmayer. A Is for Abductive: The
Language of the Emerging Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003.
Thiessen, Karen Heidebrecht. Jesus and Women in the Gospel of John. Direction Journal
19, no. 2 (Fall 1990): 52-64.
Thomas, Christopher. Footwashing in John 13 and the Johannine Community. Sheffield,
Eng.: JSOT Press, 1991.
Thyssen, Henrik Pontoppidan. Philosophical Christology in the New Testament. Numen:
International Review for the History of Religions 53, no. 2 (April 2006): 133-76.
Tilley, Terrence W. Religious Pluralism as a Problem for Practical Religious
Epistemology. Religious Studies 30, no. 2 (1994): 161-69.
Tillich, Paul. Dynamics of Faith. New York: Perennial, 2001.
Tuggy, Dale. Reids Philosophy of Religion, in Cambridge Companion to Thomas Reid,
edited by Terence Cuneo and Rene van Woudenberg. Cambridge Companions. New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2004: 289-312.
Vanhoozer, Kevin J. First Theology: God, Scripture and Hermeneutics. Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 2002.
Wallace, R.S. Sacrament, in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, edited by Walter A.
Elwell. Baker Reference Library. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1984: 965.
Watson, Natalie K. Feminist Theology. Guides to Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
2003.
151
Webber, Robert E. Ancient-Future Faith: Rethinking Evangelicalism for a Postmodern World.
Ancient-Future Faith Series. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999.
Williamson, H.G.M., and Craig A. Evans. Samaritans, in Dictionary of New Testament
Background, edited by Craig A. Evans and Stanley E. Porter. Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 2000: 1056-61.
Wood, W. Jay. Epistemology: Becoming Intellectually Virtuous. Contours of Christian
Philosophy. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998.
Wright, N.T. The New Testament and the People of God. Christian Origins and the Question
of God Vol. 1. London: T. & T. Clark, 2004.
Wulff, David M. Psychology of Religion: Classic and Contemporary. 2nd ed. New York: John
Wiley & Sons, 1997.
Zuck, Roy B. Teaching as Jesus Taught. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1995.
152